Cote d'Ivoire: Rally of Republicans official bags suspended one year's jail term Paris AFP AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE Tuesday, July 30, 2002 Jean-Jacques Bechio, a former minister in the Ivory Coast government and confidante of opposition leader Alassane Ouattara, Tuesday received a suspended prison sentence of a year for illegal possession of arms. "It's a relatively light verdict, and we will decide whether we will eventually go in for an appeal," Bechio's lawyer Mamadou Samassi told AFP. The state prosecutor displayed in court seven weapons and ammunition allegedly seized from Bechio's house. He admitted owning only three of them. Bechio was arrested after a failed coup on January 7-8 January 2001 and accused of complicity, but later acquitted for lack of proof.