I.Coast Ex-Militia Leader Tells ICC 'No Blood on Hands'

Former Ivorian youth militia boss Charles Ble Goude denied Tuesday any role in deadly post-poll violence that ravaged his country in 2010 and 2011, saying he had "no blood" on his hands.

"When it comes to my fellow citizens, I do not have a single drop of blood on my hands," Ble Goude told the International Criminal Court, where he and ex-president Laurent Gbagbo face charges of crimes against humanity arising from the bloodshed in the west African nation.

Gbagbo and Ble Goude -- often referred to as Gbagbo's "Street General" -- have denied four counts including murder, rape and persecution after some 3,000 people were killed in five months of bloodshed in the world's top cocoa producer from late 2010 until April 2011.

Their landmark trial opened on Thursday at the court based in The Hague and is set to last three to four years.

Gbagbo declared himself the winner of the November 2010 elections, but major powers including France, the former colonial power, the United States and the United Nations backed his bitter rival Alassane Ouattara, who had snatched a narrow victory.

The row triggered a bitter standoff that saw Gbagbo holed up in the fortified presidential palace and Abidjan -- the country's main city and commercial capital -- turned into a war zone.

Earlier in the day, Ble Goude's lawyer Geert-Jan Knoops likened the former youth leader, known for his fiery rhetoric, to former 1960s civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr, saying like King, his client was a pacifist.