Former Ivorian first lady sentenced to 20 years in prison

Ivory Coast's former first lady Simone Gbagbo was sentenced to 20 years in jail for her role in the post-election violence in 2010 and 2011 that left nearly 3,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands displaced, media reported on Tuesday.

After nine hours of deliberation, Judge Tahirou Dembele said the court found that Gbagbo was involved in endangering state security, had taken part in illicit rebel group acts, and undermined public order, Efe news agency reported.

Gbagbo's sentence was double what the prosecutors had asked for, prompting the former first lady's attorneys to condemn the verdict and announce their intention to appeal the decision.

"I am ashamed of Ivorian justice," Gagbo's lawyer, Rodrigue Dadje, told the media, adding, "it is a pure politically-motivated verdict".

The president of the then ruling Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), Pascal Affi N'Guessan, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison, while the son of former president Laurent Gbagbo, Michel, has been sentenced to five years.

The violence that followed the legislative elections of 2010 and 2011 claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people and displaced several hundred thousand people after Laurent Gbagbo rejected the victory of the opposition candidate, Alassane Ouattara, who had the support of the international community.

The Ivorian local justice has decided to bring Simone Gbagbo and 80 other key figures under the former administration to trial, while the former president has been at the Hague since 2012, awaiting trial at the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity.