At the trial of the bombing of the French military camp Bouaké, which left ten dead on November 6, 2004, the court heard this Friday from General Destremau, former commander of the joint battle group Bouaké, and Captain Bellamy, division chief. based in Yamoussoukro.
When asked why the Sukhoi pilots were not arrested when they returned to Yamoussoukro, General Destremau presented three parts of the answer. At first no orders were given in this direction. Secondly, after the bombing, “we were in a battle situation where there is no individual responsibility, the general continues. No one in the group believed that we could be within the current legal framework and the arrest was not meaningful for the mission which was to break the capacity of the resistance forces. “
Hence the destruction of Sukhoi first, then other aircraft. Finally, given the strong tensions that this devastation caused, the priorities, he points out, were to secure staff, airports and citizens.
Then comes the issue of black boxes, although we are “still not sure” that Sukhoï was equipped with them, the president recalls. “A civilian party claimed yesterday that your wife told him in 2006 that they were in your office. The General’s reply: “I can not say anything about this exchange, but I can basically assure you that I never had them in my possession or received orders to restore them.”
Captain Bellamy, posted in Yamoussoukro, also indicated that he had not received any instructions either for pilots or for black boxes and had not taken any initiative not to endanger his men while the Ivorian forces were present at the airport. “But if I had been ordered to do so,” he assures us, “of course I would not have wondered if we were risking anything.”
► Also read: RFI’s investigation into the Bouaké bomb deal
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