Michel Gbagbo, the son of Ivory Coast’s former president Laurent Gbagbo, has been sentenced to six months in jail for “complicity in disclosing false news.”
He has also been ordered to pay a fine of $950 (£668), his lawyer Rodrigue Dadje has said.
This comes on the back of comments he made to a news website in May 2016, claiming that “250 people are still in prison” following the country’s political crisis in 2010-11 when his father refused to relinquish power and concede defeat.
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Michel Gbagbo was also said to have indicated at the time that 300 other people “charged and placed under arrest since 2011” were missing.
A criminal court in Abidjan last Thursday ruled those claims as false. It also fined Laurent Despas, the French director of the Koaci.com website which published the interview $18,950 (£13,339) for spreading false news.
Meanwhile, Michel Gbagbo’s lawyer has said that he will appeal against the sentences.
Laurent Gbagbo is currently on trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague for crimes against humanity during the 2010-11 political crisis.
