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| - Ivory Coast's exiled former president Laurent Gbagbo can decide when he returns to the country, the national reconciliation minister said Wednesday. Gbagbo is a highly controversial figure in Ivory Coast, where he was forced out a decade ago after a civil war that claimed thousands of lives. His party said on Monday that he would return on June 17, following his acquittal on crimes against humanity charges linked to the civil war. "We have learnt that he is returning on June 17 and we take note of that," minister of national reconciliation Kouadio Konan Bertin told reporters after meeting with Assoa Adou, secretary general of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), Gbagbo's political party. "Gbagbo is a free man, acquitted" of the crimes against humanity charges by the International Criminal Court, said Konan Bertin. "It's up to him to decide when he returns to his country," he explained, adding that "we must now work to ensure that it's a peaceful return". As a former head of state, Gbagbo "has a special status" and consequently special measures must be taken, including in the matter of security, he said. Gbagbo was acquitted by the ICC in 2019, and an appeal against that ruling failed in March, opening the way for his return. Following the acquittal, President Alassane Ouattara authorised Gbagbo's return to the country by granting him the status due to his rank as former head of state. Speculation of when that will be has been building for months, and his supporters say they want to welcome him in triumph. But the government is in favour of a lower-profile return, wary of potential unrest if tens of thousands of his supporters turn out. Communications Minister Amadou Coulibaly, who is also government spokesman, said that in order to set a date "consensually... arrangements must be implemented," notably for Gbagbo's safety. Gbagbo's refusal to concede defeat in presidential elections in 2010 triggered a showdown with victor Ouattara and dug a deep rift in the country along north-south lines. He was arrested in April 2011 and transferred in November that year to the ICC in The Hague. The pro-Gbagbo camp is portraying their leader as an elder statesman who can calm political waters that reached storm pitch last year. Scores of people died in election-related violence after Gbagbo's erstwhile rival Ouattara announced he would bid for a third term in office -- a move that critics said breached the constitution. Gbagbo's return will be the start of a "new phase", Assoa Adou said on Monday -- "an important phase for the future of Ivory Coast, the phase of reconciliation, peace, the reconstruction of our country". stb/ck/pvh/dl
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