The International Criminal Court on Thursday rejected a compensation claim by former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo's right-hand man Charles Ble Goude, denying he was wrongfully prosecuted.
Appeals judges at the Hague-based court acquitted Gbagbo and Ble Goude last year on crimes against humanity charges arising from post-election violence in the Ivory Coast in 2011.
Goude's legal team afterwards said their client was subjected to a "grave and manifest miscarriage of justice" and filed for a compensation claim amounting to almost 820,000 euros ($935,000), according to court papers.
But the world crimes court's judges disagreed.
"The Chamber finds that the prosecution's actions do not rise to the level of a wrongful prosecution, and no other form of a grave and manifest miscarriage of justice has been shown to have taken place," a three-judge bench said.
"The Chamber hereby rejects Mr Ble Goude's request for compensation," the judges said.
Ble Goude and Gbagbo's trials opened in early 2016 where they faced murder and rape charges committed by Gbagbo's supporters during post-election violence in the west African nation in late 2010 and early 2011.
Three years later the combined case against the men collapsed in one of the ICC's biggest failures since it was set up in 2002 as the world's only permananent independent war crimes court.
But "at each stage of the proceedings a chamber had oversight over the process and the actions of the Prosecution were scrutinised," the ICC said in a statement.
"The fair trial rights of Mr Ble Goude were thus safeguarded during the criminal proceedings against, rather than impeded upon."
Just because the prosecution's case failed, it did not mean that it was wrongful, "irrespective of whether the accused spent time in detention," the judges said.
The world's largest cocoa producer was plunged into deadly violence after Gbagbo refused to accept defeat in the 2010 presidential elections.
The ensuing conflict claimed more than 3,000 lives and more than 200,000 people fled the country.
Gbagbo has since returned home from Europe and met with his erstwhile rival, President Alassane Ouattara.
But Ble Goude is currently without a passport.
The judges added they knew Ble Goude's current situation "is undesirable and cannot continue indefinitely."
They urged the ICC's Registry to do "everything in its power to assist the Applicant's swift return to Cote d'Ivoire."
