Wanted Senegalese general named Ban Ki-moon advisor

AFP
August 27, 2010
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DAKAR — UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has named a Senegalese general as his military advisor for peacekeeping operations, the UN said Friday, despite his being wanted under an international arrest warrant.
General Babacar Gaye is the former head of forces for the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) and he will replace Nigeria's General Chikadibia Isaac Obiakor whose mandate ends on September 12.
Born in 1951, Gaye led MONUC from March 2005 to October 2008 before being briefly replaced by Spanish General Vicente Diaz de Villegas.
MONUC has since been transformed into a stabilisation mission and is now known as MONUSCO.
In September 2008, French judge Jean-Wilfrid Noel issued international arrest warrants against seven Senegalese army and navy leaders, following a complaint by families of French victims of the Joola ferry disaster.
Gaye was army chief when the ferry capsized off the coast of Gambia on September 26, 2002 on its way from Ziguinchor, the main city in the Casamance to Dakar.
Official figures state that 1,863 people died or disappeared, including 22 French nationals, a figure which overtook the Titanic death toll of 1,500. Only 64 people survived the sinking of the Joola.
The UN said Gaye led a long and brilliant career in the Senegalese army of which he was chief of staff. He also participated in two other UN peacekeeping missions in the Sinai in the seventies and in Lebanon in the eighties.