Court slams release of war crimes suspect

The CAR’s former Livestock Minister Bouba Ali Hassan, who was detained for war crimes and crimes against humanity, was released from jail by gendarmes on Friday. A report on the IoL site notes that Ali Hassan, who was arrested 10 days ago, was due to appear before judges at the Special Criminal Court in the capital Bangui, which tries rights cases. The court denounced what it called an ‘interference with justice’ after the unit handling his transfer ‘was prevented from going to his place of detention’. The court said it was an attack on the independence of the judiciary and sought ‘the backing of the government in the execution’ of its orders. Before he entered politics in 2017, Hassan was a senior member of an armed group called the Union for Peace in Central Africa (UPC). American NGO The Sentry claimed Bouba and UPC leader Ali Darassa were directly responsible for a November 2018 attack on a displacement camp that killed 112 villagers, including 19 children. The Special Criminal Court accused him of war crimes and ‘crimes against humanity through murders, inhumane acts’ and ‘cruel treatment like torture’.