French diplomat shot dead in Ivory Coast

A French diplomat with the European Union in Ivory Coast was shot dead in his home overnight, a spokesman for the French Embassy said today.

The victim, Michel Miaucel, was in charge of West Africa security operations for the EU, embassy spokesman Jacques Cuzi said.

Cuzi said Miaucel had been shot with his own gun by unknown assailants and died in his home.

There did not appear to be any political motivation for the killing, but the investigation was still ongoing, and suicide has been ruled out, he said.

“Since there was no break-in into the house, it could be someone close to him,” Cuzi said.

Miaucel lived with his wife and children in Ivory Coast’s southern commercial capital, Abidjan.

Ivory Coast has been split into a government-run south and a rebel-held north since insurgents failed to topple President Laurent Gbagbo in a 2002 attempted coup.

The United Nations is overseeing a transition government, and some 10,000 UN and French troops are deployed in the world’s top cocoa grower, many of them in a buffer zone separating the two sides.

In recent months, Gbagbo has repudiated peace plans backed by the United Nations and France, saying he will use African mediators to bring an end to the stalemate with rebels. Talks have begun between the two sides in nearby Burkina Faso.