{"id":29663,"date":"2025-07-25T05:25:01","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T09:25:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=29663"},"modified":"2025-07-25T05:25:01","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T09:25:01","slug":"former-head-of-central-african-football-body-jailed-for-war-crimes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2025\/07\/25\/former-head-of-central-african-football-body-jailed-for-war-crimes\/","title":{"rendered":"Former head of Central African football body jailed for war crimes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The former head of the Central African Republic (CAR) football federation, Patrice-Edouard Nga\u00efssona, has been found guilty<\/b>\u00a0<\/b>of committing 28 war crimes and crimes against humanity by judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC).<\/b><\/p>\n

He was accused, alongside Alfred Yekatom, of co-ordinating attacks against the country’s Muslim population in 2013-14.<\/p>\n

Yekatom, nicknamed Rambo, was found guilty of 20 charges. The judges gave their verdict after a trial lasting almost four years involving more than 170 witnesses and nearly 20,000 items of evidence.<\/p>\n

Nga\u00efssona was sentenced to 12 years and Yekatom 15 years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Violence has gripped the CAR for much of the past decade, but a recent peace deal led to the dissolution of two rebel groups this month.<\/p>\n

CAR was plunged into turmoil in 2013 when predominately Muslim rebels from the S\u00e9l\u00e9ka group seized power in the majority Christian country.<\/p>\n

A band of mostly Christian militias, called the anti-Balaka, rose up to counter S\u00e9l\u00e9ka after then-President Fran\u00e7ois Boziz\u00e9 was ousted.<\/p>\n

Nga\u00efssona and Yekatom were convicted of numerous crimes, including murder, torture and persecuting a religious group.<\/p>\n

Nga\u00efssona was acquitted of rape, while Yekatom was cleared of enlisting children as soldiers.<\/p>\n

Both men had denied all charges.<\/p>\n

The prosecution set out the alleged system of command, saying Nga\u00efssona provided funds and instructions to anti-Balaka groups in 2013 and 2014.<\/p>\n

Yekatom was a commander who allegedly led fighters into the capital, Bangui, on 5 December 2013 where civilians were slaughtered.<\/p>\n

The prosecution said the pair’s strategy was to make all Muslims their target, describing them as “enemies of the nation”.<\/p>\n

Yekatom authorised his fighters to attack Muslim civilians, including to slit throats, cut off ears and bury people alive, the prosecution alleged.<\/p>\n

Asked to enter a plea at the start of the trial, both men rejected all the charges.<\/p>\n

Media reports at the time indicates that at least 1,000 people were killed in tit-for-tat clashes in Bangui in December 2013, and half the city’s population fled in that month alone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Who is Patrice-Edouard Nga\u00efssona?<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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He was the self-declared political co-ordinator of anti-Balaka forces.<\/p>\n

Nga\u00efssona was barred from running for CAR president in 2015 because of his alleged role in the atrocities.<\/p>\n

He is a former head of the CAR’s football federation and briefly served as sports minister before being elected to the executive committee of the Confederation of African Football (Caf) in February 2018.<\/p>\n

His appointment was criticised by several human rights groups.<\/p>\n

“If the allegations were true, I wouldn’t be here today,” he told AFP news agency at the time. “[I don’t] mix politics and sport – everything I’ve done has been for the good of my country.”<\/p>\n

French authorities arrested him in December 2018 and he was transferred to the ICC in January 2019.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Who is Alfred Yekatom?<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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Yekatom was elected as an MP in 2016, despite being subject to UN sanctions.<\/p>\n

He was arrested in October 2018 after he fired a gun in parliament, then ran away, after a row with a fellow MP.<\/p>\n

His extradition to the ICC was the first from CAR.<\/p>\n

The International Federation for Human Rights (known by its French acronym FIDH) said it signalled the authorities there were committed to fighting impunity.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The former head of the Central African Republic (CAR) football federation, Patrice-Edouard Nga\u00efssona, has been found guilty\u00a0of committing 28 war crimes and crimes against humanity by judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC). He was […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,109,2,6],"tags":[5713,11503,5712,11502,3096,2707,138,979,978,11504,2387,7503,850],"class_list":{"0":"post-29663","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-human-rights","8":"category-headline","9":"category-news","10":"category-world","11":"tag-alfred-yekatom","12":"tag-bangui","13":"tag-central-african-republic","14":"tag-central-african-republic-football-federation","15":"tag-crimes-against-humanity","16":"tag-extradition","17":"tag-human-rights","18":"tag-icc","19":"tag-international-criminal-court","20":"tag-international-federation-for-human-rights","21":"tag-muslims","22":"tag-patrice-edouard-ngaissona","23":"tag-war-crimes","24":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29663"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29665,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29663\/revisions\/29665"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}