International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo requested in June the right to open an investigation, alleging that forces loyal to ousted leader Laurent Gbagbo as well as those backing his rival, Alassane Ouattara, committed war crimes.

In a ruling made public on Monday, ICC judges granted the prosecutor the right to open an investigation. This will be the Hague-based court’s seventh formal probe, all of them in Africa.

Gbagbo refused to cede power to Ouattara following the Nov. 28 election, triggering months of violence and economic havoc in the world’s top cocoa-producing country before Gbagbo was captured in April in Abidjan.

Moreno-Ocampo has said at least 3,000 people were killed and 520 people were arbitrarily detained in the violence.

Although the Ivory Coast is not a party to the ICC’s founding treaty, it has accepted the jurisdiction of the court in April 2003 and again last December and in May of this year.

After a preliminary examination, Moreno-Ocampo said there is a reasonable basis to believe that crimes within the court’s jurisdiction have been committed since the election.