Former Liberian rebel commander Alieu Kosiah was sentenced Friday, June 18 to 20 years in prison by a Swiss court in a landmark trial, becoming the first Liberian to be convicted of war crimes committed during the conflict in his country .
Read also: Crimes against humanity in Liberia: a former rebel commander sent back to the assizes in France
Swiss Federal Criminal Court's Criminal Court has found 46-year-old Alieu Kosiah guilty of multiple atrocities, including murder, rape and use of child soldiers, during the first of two successive civil wars in Liberia and left some 250,000 dead between 1989 and 2003. The verdict of the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona, in southern Switzerland, marks the first conviction of a Liberian, whether in this African country. West or elsewhere, for war crimes committed during the conflict.
Alieu Kosiah, who pleaded his innocence, was accused of having committed a series of war crimes while he was commander of the armed group of the ULIMO (United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy), a faction of armed groups hostile to the Charles Taylor movement (National Patriotic Front of Liberia, NPFL). He has been detained since his arrest in November 2014 in Switzerland.
He was found guilty on 21 of the 25 counts, including ordering or participating in the killing of 17 civilians and two unarmed soldiers.
Alieu Kosiah was also convicted of rape, "
use
" of "
child soldiers
", ordering looting and repeatedly inflicting "
cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment
" on civilians.
He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, from which must be deducted the more than six and a half years he has already spent in detention.
The court also ordered that he be expelled from Swiss territory for a period of 15 years.
Other lawsuits abroad
Switzerland recognizes the principle of universal justice, which allows it to try people suspected of having committed international crimes, regardless of where they were committed. It has been called upon to deal with several cases of international justice, but this is the first time that a case of war crimes has been brought before a Swiss non-military body.
The civil war in Liberia is one of the most atrocious conflicts on the African continent. It was marked by massacres perpetrated by often drugged combatants, mutilations and acts of cannibalism. Most of the commanders of the various armed groups fled the country after the war. More than 15 years after the end of the conflict, a large number of personalities directly involved in the civil war still occupy important positions in the spheres of political and economic power.
The recommendations of the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) published in 2009 have largely gone unheeded, especially in the name of peacekeeping. One of the main actors in the conflict, the former warlord turned president (1997-2003) Charles Taylor was convicted in 2012 for crimes against humanity and war crimes perpetrated in Sierra Leone, neighboring Liberia , but he was not worried about the atrocities committed in his own country.
Besides Alieu Kosiah, a few other cases of prosecution exist abroad. The trial of former Sierra Leonean rebel leader Gibril Massaquoi, nicknamed "
Angel Gabriel
" and accused of war crimes and a long list of atrocities during the conflict in Liberia, opened in February in Finland , before an unprecedented relocation on Liberian soil and then hearings of witnesses in Freetown, capital of Sierra Leone. Another former Liberian rebel commander, Kunti K., accused of acts of torture, was returned to the assizes in France.
