Accra, Ghana - Ghana on Friday extradited the fugitive Ivorian youth leader Charles Ble Goude back to his country barely 24 hours after he was arrested, reliable sources in the national security said.
The swift extradition of Ble Goude, a close ally of former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, caught his Ghanaian lawyers by surprise and they have lashed at the government and national security authorities for their action which they described as 'illegal'.
The state-owned Ghanaian Times newspaper reported on Friday that Ble Goude was held at the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) in Accra but the security authorities were tight-lipped on the circumstances of the arrest and what would be done to him.
Ble Goude fled Cote d’Ivoire across its eastern border into Ghana after President Gbagbo was captured with the assistance of French forces during a brief but bloody civil war that followed the 2010 disputed presidential election in the country.
He is said to be implicated in human rights crimes during the fighting between supporters of Gbagbo and President Alassane Ouattara, who was said to have won the election at the time.
He had apparently been living in Ghana for a while and there was a warrant for his arrest from the Ivorian government.
Goude is the second high-profile Ivorian close to former president Gbagbo to be arrested in Ghana after Justin Kone Katinan, who has been fighting his extradition to Cote d’Ivoire since his arrest last year.
Pana 20/01/2013