COTE D IVOIRE:
Policeman gets 17 years for killing French journalist
ABIDJAN, 22 January (IRIN) - A military court in Cote d'Ivoire jailed a policeman for 17 years on
Thursday for the murder of a French journalist who was shot dead at point blank range while he
waited outside police
headquarters to interview a group of detainees who were about to be released.
The panel of judges found police sargent Theodore Seri Dago guilty of culpable homicide for shooting
dead Jean Helene, the correspondent of Radio France Internationale, on the night of October 21,
while he was on
guard duty outside police headquarters in Abidjan.
They also fined Seri Dago 500,000 CFA (US$1,000) and ordered the Ivorian government to pay 137
million CFA (US$275,000) in compensation to Helene's family and employers.
Seri Dago was arrested minutes after the unprovoked shooting at point blank range. Presiding judge
Hamed Lanzeny Coulibaly said the panel had found him guilty by a majority verdict.
The 17-year sentence imposed on the police sargent after a swift three-day trial was two years more
than the 15 years sought by state prosecutor Ange Kessy.
After the sentence was read out in a tense court room, Seri Dago, who pleaded not gulity, yelled from
the dock "I am innocent,I am innocent." He has five days in which to appeal against the sentence.
Helene was killed at a time of rising tension in Cote d'Ivoire when the country's fragile peace process
looked to be in serious danger of collapse.
Rebels occupying the north of the country had withdrawn from a government of national reconciliation
and resentment against France, the former colonial power in Cote d'Ivoire, was growing in the
government-held
south.
Many hardline supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo openly accused France, which has 4,000
peacekeeping troops in Cote d'Ivoire, of supporting the rebels. France brokered a peace agreement
between the government and rebels in January 2003, which Gbagbo was reluctant to accept.
The killing of Jean Helene was widely seen within Cote d'Ivoire as a symbolic strike back against
France and was greeted with barely disguised satisfaction by many hardliners.
Gbagbo condemned the killing, while at the same time expressing sympathy with many of his
countrymen who felt frustrated by France's role in the civil war. Diplomats privately expressed
suspiscions that Seri Dago had not acted alone, but with tacit official encouragement
Guillaume Prigent, a French lawyer for the press freedom watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres,
observed the trial and told IRIN that he was satisfied with with the conditions under which it had taken
place.
Since the security forces became closely involved in politics after a 1999 coup, soldiers and policemen
have acted with increasing impunity from the law. The trial of Helene's killer was seen as a test case for
calling them to account for their actions.
Kessy, the state prosecutor, told IRIN shortly before the verdict was announced that the trial of
Helene's killer would be followed by six other trials of policemen accused of abusing their powers
between now and
the end of March.
Soldiers and policemen manning checkpoints have shot dead several bus and taxi drivers who
complain that they are constantly stopped and made to pay bribes. Several of these deaths have
triggered transport strikes
in the capital Abidjan.
Kessy said two of the cases coming to court soon involved the drivers of ?Gbakas? the cheap and
crowded 20-seat mini-buses, which provide the backbone of Abidjan's public transport system.