Swiss court sentences 20-year-old Libyan insurgent to war crimes Europe News

Alieu Kosiah was found guilty of 21 charges, including rape, spreading child soldiers and an act of cannibalism.

A Swiss court has sentenced Liberia rebel commander Alieu Kosiah to 20 years in prison for war crimes committed during the country’s civil war in the 1990s, a verdict welcomed by activists and human rights groups.

The 46-year-old was found guilty of 21 of the 25 charges, including ordering or taking part in the killing of 17 civilians and two unarmed soldiers, according to documents from the Swiss Federal Court in the southern city of Bellinzona.

He also found the culprit in the rape, spread a child soldier, ordered looting of civilians, inhuman and degrading treatment, and committed an act of cannibalism.

Due to the characteristics of the constant use of small soldiers, the Liberian civil wars on their backs – from 1989 to 1997 and from 1999 to 2003 – killed about 250,000 people and displaced more than a million.

Kosiah was arrested in 2014 in Switzerland, where he has lived since 1999 for his role in war crimes in Lofa County (northwestern Liberia) from 1993 to 1995. A 2011 Swiss law allows for the prosecution of serious crimes committed anywhere, in accordance with the principle of universal jurisdiction.

The court said in a statement that the 20-year sentence was the maximum that could be imposed under Swiss law.

“No mitigating circumstances were taken into account in the sentence. He was also ordered to be expelled from Switzerland within 15 years, ”he said.

He added that Kosiah was ordered to pay compensation to the seven plaintiffs.

It was not immediately clear when the deportation would take place. Court documents show that Kosiah’s sentence is already 2,413 days in prison, which is about six and a half years.

“Deterrence for Others”

Activists in the Liberian capital Monrovia celebrated the verdict.

“This will prevent it for others around the world. I think justice has taken its own path,” said civil society campaigner Dan Sayeh.

Another Liberian activist Jefferson Knight said he hopes the sentence will put increasing pressure on the government to create a war crimes unit, as recommended by the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission a few years ago.

Kosiah denied all charges and told the judge he was a minor when he entered the dispute. On Friday they cleaned up an assassination attempt on a civilian, an accessory to the murder of a civilian, a robbery order and the hiring of a child soldier.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), a New York rights group, describe Friday’s decision “as a milestone for the Liberians.”

“More than 20 years after the violations took place, the victims played a key role in securing the first conviction for war crimes in the Liberian civil war,” Balkees Jarrah, HRW’s associate director of international justice, said in a statement.

“The verdict is a major step forward in breaking down the wall of impunity for the Liberian victims and the Swiss justice system.”

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor was convicted in 2012 of war crimes and crimes against humanity, but for the atrocities committed alongside Sierra Leone, not in his own country.

The verdict handed down to Kosiah for war crimes committed during the conflict is the first time a Liberian has been convicted (in a West African country or anywhere else).

The case was also the first trial of Swiss war crimes in a civil court.