A United Nations-backed special court in the Central African Republic (CAR) has begun a trial in absentia for former President François Bozizé on charges of crimes against humanity, including murder, enforced disappearances, torture, and rape.
Bozizé, who seized power in a 2003 coup and was ousted by rebels a decade later, has been living in exile in Guinea-Bissau since March 2023. Three of his former senior military officers—Eugene Barret Ngaikosset, Vianney Semndiro, and Firmin Junior Danboy—are in pretrial detention in CAR.
The trial is being held in the capital Bangui by the Special Criminal Court (SCC), a hybrid tribunal comprising CAR and foreign judges.
In 2024, the SCC issued an international arrest warrant for the former president as part of an investigation into crimes against humanity allegedly committed by Bozizé's Presidential Guard at a civilian prison and a military training center in the central town of Bossembele.
The judges concluded there were “serious and consistent pieces of evidence against Bozizé, likely to lead to his criminal responsibility as a direct superior and military leader.”
The SCC is tasked with investigating war crimes committed since 2003 in CAR, a country that has endured multiple waves of armed conflict and hardline regimes since gaining independence from France in 1960.
The 2013 ouster of Bozizé by a mainly Muslim rebel coalition called Seleka triggered a civil war in CAR, one of the world's poorest nations. Bozizé formed armed groups dominated by Christians and animists, known as Anti-balaka, in an attempt to regain power.
Bozizé himself fled to Cameroon via the Democratic Republic of Congo but returned to CAR in 2019 to declare his candidacy in upcoming elections. The Constitutional Court ruled he did not meet the “good moral character” requirement due to the alleged crimes against humanity.
In late 2020, he took over a new rebel coalition called the Coalition of Patriots for Change, threatening the rule of President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, before Russia deployed hundreds of mercenaries from the private Wagner Group, helping the government push back the coalition.
Bozizé fled into exile, first to neighboring Chad and then to Guinea-Bissau, a country that does not allow extradition.
