A Swiss appeals court on Thursday upheld the 20-year prison sentence of Alieu Kosiah, a former Liberian warlord, and upheld the charge of crimes against humanity for the first time.
The Federal Criminal Court of Appeal decided to uphold the charge of crimes against humanity, which had been added by the prosecution and the plaintiffs for the appeal trial earlier this year.
"Alieu Kosiah cannot be satisfied with this decision" and he "will examine all the means available to restore the truth", wrote his lawyer Dimitri Gianoli to AFP.
He wonders "if this is really a decision of justice and law or rather a political decision?"
Alieu Kosiah was found guilty in June 2021 by the Federal Criminal Court of multiple atrocities committed during the first of Liberia's two successive civil wars which killed 250,000 people between 1989 and 2003.
The decision is "historic", lawyer Alain Werner, a human rights specialist, who heads the NGO Civitas Maxima and represents four of the seven plaintiffs, told AFP.
“It is a great day for these incredibly brave Liberian victims who have crossed the seas to seek justice, and to obtain it despite Ebola at the beginning of the case, and Covid-19 at the end,” he underlined. .
“It is also a great day for justice and for Liberia,” he said.
The trial conviction was the first of a Liberian, either in the West African country or elsewhere, for war crimes committed during the conflict.
Alieu Kosiah, 48, moved to Switzerland in 1998 and was arrested there. He has been detained since November 2014.
It is the first time that crimes against humanity have been tried in Switzerland, where the indictment of this count was only made possible by a change in law in 2011.
Like war crimes, crimes against humanity refer to atrocities (murder, torture, rape) committed on a systematic or large scale, and not isolated or sporadic events.
In 2021, Alieu Kosiah was found guilty of a series of war crimes while he was commander of the armed group ULIMO (United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy), a faction of armed groups hostile to the movement of Charles Taylor, the Front National Patriotic of Liberia (NPFL).
According to Thursday's judgment, he is found guilty of crimes against humanity on the counts of instigating the murder of 13 civilians, murder of 4 civilians, complicity in the attempted murder of a civilian and complicity in the murder of a civilian.
In addition to the 20 years in prison, the court ordered his expulsion from Swiss territory for a period of 10 years.
In Liberia, only a handful of people have been convicted so far for their involvement in the civil war, and efforts to establish a war crimes tribunal in the country have stalled.
In France, the Paris Assize Court sentenced former Liberian rebel commander Kunti Kamara to life in prison in November for acts of barbarism and complicity in crimes against humanity during the first Liberian civil war.
In January, another alleged ex-Liberian warlord, Gibril Massaquoi, acquitted last year, appeared before an appeal court in Finland, also accused of atrocities during the conflict.
Among the main actors in the conflict, the former warlord turned president (1997-2003) Charles Taylor was convicted in 2012 by the Special Court for Sierra Leone, based in The Hague, for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in this neighboring country of Liberia, but was not worried about the atrocities in his country.
01/06/2023 17:03:36 - Geneva (AFP) © 2023 AFP
