{"id":48494,"date":"2025-07-24T20:40:44","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T20:40:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/former-car-football-chief-found-guilty-of-war-crimes"},"modified":"2025-07-24T21:09:54","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T21:09:54","slug":"former-car-football-chief-found-guilty-of-war-crimes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/former-car-football-chief-found-guilty-of-war-crimes","title":{"rendered":"Former CAR football chief found guilty of war crimes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Eritrea. <\/strong><\/span>The International Criminal Court has found Patrice-Edouard Ngai\u0308ssona, former head of the Central African Republic\u2019s football federation, guilty of 28 war crimes and crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n<p>He and ex-militia commander Alfred Yekatom, known as , were accused of orchestrating brutal attacks on CAR\u2019s Muslim population between 2013 and 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Yekatom was found guilty of 20 charges. He\u2019s been sentenced to 15 years in prison; Ngai\u0308ssona received 12 years.<\/p>\n<p>Their trial lasted nearly four years, with more than 170 witnesses and 20,000 pieces of evidence presented.<\/p>\n<p>Both men led anti-Balaka militias, mostly Christian fighters who rose up after Muslim Se\u0301le\u0301ka rebels seized power in 2013, ousting President Franc\u0327ois Bozize\u0301.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors say Ngai\u0308ssona funded and directed the violence, while Yekatom led attacks on civilians in Bangui on December 5, 2013 when 1,000 people were killed, and half the capital fled.<\/p>\n<p>Victims were tortured, buried alive, and targeted purely for being Muslim.<\/p>\n<p>Both men denied the charges.<\/p>\n<p>The ruling comes as CAR sees a fragile step toward peace, with two major rebel groups dissolving this month.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Eritrea<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Eritrea. The International Criminal Court has found Patrice-Edouard Ngai\u0308ssona, former head of the Central African Republic\u2019s football federation, guilty of 28 war crimes and crimes against humanity. He and ex-militia commander Alfred Yekatom, known as , were accused of orchestrating brutal attacks on CAR\u2019s Muslim population between 2013 and 2014. Yekatom was found [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":48493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17],"tags":[361,7173,233,1397],"class_list":["post-48494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-armed-conflicts","tag-bangui","tag-eritrea","tag-icc"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Former CAR football chief found guilty of war crimes - Eritrea<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The International Criminal Court has found Patrice-Edouard Ngai\u0308ssona, former head of the Central African Republic\u2019s foo ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/former-car-football-chief-found-guilty-of-war-crimes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Former CAR football chief found guilty of war crimes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The International Criminal Court has found Patrice-Edouard Ngai\u0308ssona, former head of the Central African Republic\u2019s foo ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/former-car-football-chief-found-guilty-of-war-crimes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Eritrea\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-07-24T20:40:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-07-24T21:09:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/sites\/27\/2025\/07\/sm_1753375049.904337.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"538\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/former-car-football-chief-found-guilty-of-war-crimes#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/former-car-football-chief-found-guilty-of-war-crimes\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Former CAR football chief found guilty of war crimes\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-07-24T20:40:44+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-07-24T21:09:54+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/former-car-football-chief-found-guilty-of-war-crimes\"},\"wordCount\":190,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/former-car-football-chief-found-guilty-of-war-crimes#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/sites\/27\/2025\/07\/sm_1753375049.904337.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Armed conflicts\",\"Bangui\",\"Eritrea\",\"ICC\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/former-car-football-chief-found-guilty-of-war-crimes#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/former-car-football-chief-found-guilty-of-war-crimes\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eritrea\/all-news\/former-car-football-chief-found-guilty-of-war-crimes\",\"name\":\"Former CAR football chief found guilty of war crimes - 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