Ivory Coast’s Laurent Gbagbo has become the first former head of state to appear at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
He faces four charges of crimes against humanity, including murder and rape, in the wake of Ivory Coast’s disputed presidential elections a year ago.
Some 3,000 people were killed in violence after Mr Gbagbo refused to accept defeat in the 2010 polls.
He was not asked to plead but has denied responsibility for the violence.
The 66-year-old has also rejected accusations that the elections were rigged and accuses former colonial power France of plotting to topple him from power in the world’s biggest cocoa producer.
His transfer from Ivory Coast – where he had been under house arrest since April – to The Hague last week sparked anger from his supporters who described it as a “political kidnapping”.
His Ivorian Popular Front has pulled out of the 11 December parliamentary elections in protest.
The former president, speaking in French, said he wanted to see the evidence against him. “I will challenge that evidence and then you hand down your judgment,” he told the three-judge panel.
Gbagbo also complained about his arrest by opposition forces backed by French troops in April, saying he saw his son beaten and his interior minister killed in the fighting. “I was the president of the republic and the residence of the president of the republic was shelled,” he said.
He also complained about his transfer to The Hague last week from northern Ivory Coast where he was under house arrest. “We were deceived,” he said, adding that the official in charge of his transfer “did not have the courage to tell me I was going to The Hague”.
Monday’s brief hearing was to confirm Gbagbo’s identity and ensure that he understood his rights and the charges. According to court papers, Gbagbo is charged as an “indirect perpetrator” in a campaign of violence against supporters of Ouattara.
Even before Gbagbo was led into the courtroom, his lawyers attacked his arrest and transfer to the court as French neocolonialism. “It’s a neocolonialist trial,” Gbagbo’s adviser Toussaint Alain told reporters in The Hague. “The (ICC) has become an instrument of France … to empower friends and punish the ones who don’t follow along.”
