Twelve French troops were convicted in a Paris military court of stealing cash last year from an Côte d’Ivoire bank they supposedly were protecting, the Ivorian daily Fraternite reported on Wednesday.
The troops stole about $400 000 dollars from the bank in the rebel- held town of Man in the country’s northwest.
They were part of a 4 000-strong French force sent to monitor a fragile ceasefire between Ivorian troops and rebels, whose 2002 uprising virtually split the country in half.
Eight of them were sentenced to a year in prison, and four others were sentenced up to eight months.
The soldiers allegedly devised a plan to rob the bank when they noticed one of the bank’s security walls had been damaged, the newspaper reported.
In a separate incident, six other French peacekeepers are expected to stand trial later this year for allegedly stealing nearly $20 000 in African Financial Community (CFA) francs from a bank in the rebel’s northern stronghold of Bouake.
The incidents have undermined France’s efforts to broker peace in Côte d’Ivoire, a former French colony. – Sapa-DPA