This archive report was first published on 22 June 2021.
Laurent Gbagbo, the former President of Ivory Coast, has returned home after nearly a decade in exile and has filed for divorce from his wife Simone Gbagbo.
According to a statement from his lawyer, Claude Mentenon, Gbagbo filed his application on Monday with a matrimonial court judge of the Court of First Instance of Abidjan, as a last resort after Simone's 'repeated refusal' to consent to a mutually agreed separation agreement.
Gbagbo's application comes three days after his return to the country following his acquittal by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands, where he was tried for war crimes related to the 2010 post-election violence that led to the deaths of over 3,000 people.
The former President returned to Abidjan on June 17, after nearly a decade since he was transferred to The Hague in 2011.
There had been rumors of a rift between Gbagbo and Simone, who was seen as a key influence on his presidency. The couple, who got married in 1989, have two daughters together and have been in political activism together, jointly forming the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) which won elections in 2000.
