(Bloomberg) --

Exiled former Ivory Coast cabinet minister Charles Ble Goude appealed to the government to let him come home, as the International Criminal Court prepares to hear an appeal against his acquittal on war crimes charges.

Ble Goude’s request comes four months before the world’s top cocoa grower is scheduled to hold elections. In December, an Ivorian court convicted him in absentia on charges of murder, rape and torture related to conflict that followed a disputed 2010 vote, and sentenced him to 20 years in prison.

The 48-year-old former youth leader, who has presidential ambitions, said he wants to return to help reconcile the West African nation. He’s currently in The Hague in the Netherlands, where the ICC will begin its hearing on June 22.

“When you want peace and reconciliation, you can never do too much to bring together the sons and daughters of this country,” Ble Goude told reporters Wednesday in an online briefing. “I want to come home. I am not Dutch.”

The ICC cleared Ble Goude last year of crimes against humanity during the post-2010 election violence. The conflict, triggered by former President Laurent Gbagbo’s refusal to concede defeat, left at least 3,000 people missing or dead.

Ble Goude isn’t required to remain in the Netherlands while the appeal hearing is ongoing, and is free to travel to any country that’s prepared to receive him.

Economic Disruption

Fitch Ratings, which has a stable outlook on Ivory Coast’s B+ rating, said June 3 that legal cases against former officials could trigger “severe political tensions” in the country. Over the past quarter century, all elections barring one in 2015 have been fraught with community violence and disruptions to economic activity, it said in January.

The Ivorian authorities in April convicted former speaker of parliament Guillaume Soro on charges of money laundering and embezzlement. Soro, 48, announced his intention to run for president in October. Ble Goude has said he intends to run for president in the future, though he’s ruled out being a candidate in the upcoming vote.

The October poll is expected to pit President Alassane Ouattara‘s hand-picked succcessor, Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly, against a yet-to-be-identified candidate from ex-President Henri Konan Bedie’s party.

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