Guillaume Soro, the former rebel leader running for president in Ivory Coast, was convicted in absentia on Tuesday of embezzlement and sentenced to 20 years in prison, a verdict likely to exclude him from October’s election. The verdict was announced after a trial that lasted only a few hours and was boycotted by Soro’s lawyers, who say the charges were cooked up to prevent their client from being a candidate. The Oct. 31 election is seen as a test of stability for Ivory Coast, the world’s largest cocoa producer, which has emerged from a civil war in 2010-11 that killed some 3,000 people to become one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies.
