A landmark war crimes trial has opened in Bangui against former Central African Republic president Francois Bozize, placing the country’s turbulent past under rare judicial scrutiny. The proceedings, held before the UN-backed Special Criminal Court, are being conducted in absentia, with Bozize represented by his lawyer.

Bozize, a former army general who seized power in a 2003 coup and ruled for a decade, is accused of crimes against humanity allegedly committed between 2009 and 2013. Prosecutors say members of his security forces carried out murder, enforced disappearances, torture and rape, targeting civilians in areas seen as hostile to his regime.

While the 79-year-old former leader remains in exile in Guinea-Bissau, three of his former senior military officers appeared in the dock in Bangui. Eugene Barret Ngaikosset, Vianney Semndiro and Firmin Junior Danboy, all previously held in pre-trial detention, sat on the defendants’ bench in orange prison uniforms as judges read out the charges.

The case is being heard by the Special Criminal Court, a hybrid tribunal composed of Central African and international judges. Based in the capital, the court has a mandate to investigate and prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the country since 2003, a period marked by repeated coups, rebellions and sectarian violence.

Investigators focused in particular on alleged atrocities by Bozize’s presidential guard in the central town of Bossembele, including in a civilian prison and a military training centre. Judges concluded there was serious and consistent evidence that Bozize could bear criminal responsibility as a hierarchical superior and military leader, prompting the court to issue an international arrest warrant.

Bozize’s fall from power in 2013, when a coalition of mostly Muslim rebels known as Seleka swept into Bangui, plunged the country into civil war. In response, Bozize is accused of backing largely Christian and animist militias, the anti-Balaka, in a brutal struggle that left thousands of civilians dead and displaced hundreds of thousands more. UN investigators have accused both Seleka and anti-Balaka forces of widespread war crimes.

Even after his ouster, Bozize remained a central figure in the conflict. He later emerged as the political leader of the Coalition of Patriots for Change, a rebel alliance that sought to topple President Faustin-Archange Touadera before being pushed back with the help of Russian paramilitaries. A domestic court has already sentenced Bozize in absentia to forced labour for life for conspiracy, rebellion and murder, but the Bangui war crimes trial marks the most ambitious attempt yet to hold him to account.