Ivory Coast clarifies presidential pardon for prisoners

Ivory Coast has given details of President Alassane Ouattara’s pledge to show leniency to 3,100 inmates, saying only a small portion of those selected were behind bars for deadly post-election unrest.

Justice Minister Gnenema Coulibaly said the president’s act applied to just 100 people awaiting trial in connection with the 2010-2011 violence, which left some 3,000 dead.

Ouattara told the nation on Thursday that he had decided to use his right of “clemency to grant full and partial sentence reductions.”

He did not however give a breakdown of how many prisoners would go free immediately and how many would remain behind bars.

The post-election violence in 2010-11 came after former president Laurent Gbagbo refused to concede defeat to Ouattara leading to unrest in the Cocoa rich West African nation.