\n Switzerland's supreme court on Friday upheld a 20-year jail sentence for former Liberian warlord Alieu Kosiah, but overturned a conviction for crimes against humanity.\n<\/p>\n
\n In 2021, Switzerland's Federal Criminal Court found Kosiah, now 51, guilty of multiple atrocities committed during the first of Liberia's back-to-back civil wars, in which around 250,000 people died between 1989 and 2003.\n<\/p>\n
\n In 2023, the court's appeals chamber upheld his 20-year sentence for war crimes and, for the first time in Swiss history, also made a new ruling that Kosiah was guilty of crimes against humanity.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland was asked to review the case and its verdict, dated September 28, was published on Friday.\n<\/p>\n
\n The court \"rejected the appeal filed by a high-ranking Liberian military official challenging his conviction for violations of the laws of war committed between 1993 and 1995 during the first Liberian civil war\", it said in a statement.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"However, the court has acquitted the individual of the charge of crimes against humanity, based on a strict application of the principle of non-retroactivity.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Switzerland recognises the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows it to prosecute individuals suspected of international crimes, regardless of where those crimes were committed.\n<\/p>\n
\n The court said the offence of crimes against humanity -- introduced into Swiss law in 2011 -- could not be applied to acts committed before then.\n<\/p>\n
\n Kosiah's conviction for violating the law of war was upheld, as was the maximum 20-year custodial sentence imposed.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The decision makes final the first war crimes conviction ever handed down by a Swiss civilian court, and the first conviction anywhere of a Liberian for war crimes committed during the country's civil wars,\" said the Swiss organisation Civitas Maxima, which works to bring perpetrators of international crimes to justice.\n<\/p>\n
\n Kosiah settled in Switzerland in the late 1990s and was arrested in 2014.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Today the survivors of Alieu Kosiah's crimes have final justice,\" said Civitas Maxima director Alain Werner, who represents victims in the case.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We are, however, deeply disappointed by the acquittal on crimes against humanity. What happened in Lofa between 1993 and 1995 is the very definition of a crime against humanity.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Like war crimes, crimes against humanity refers to atrocities, including murder, torture and rape. However, instead of isolated or sporadic events, the charge is used for incidents carried out in a widespread or systematic way.\n<\/p>\n
\n In the 2021 verdict, Kosiah was found guilty of a slew of war crimes committed as commander of the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO) rebel group.\n<\/p>\n
\n He ordered or participated in the killing of 17 civilians and two unarmed soldiers, as well as rape, and deploying a child soldier, the court ruled.\n<\/p>\n
\n He had also ordered lootings and repeatedly ordered, or had himself inflicted, cruel and humiliating treatment of civilians, and mishandled corpses, according to the verdict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Switzerland's supreme court on Friday upheld a 20-year jail sentence for former Liberian warlord Alieu Kosiah, but overturned a conviction for crimes against humanity. In 2021, Switzerland's Federal Criminal Court found Kosiah, now 51, guilty of multiple atrocities committed during the first of Liberia's back-to-back civil wars, in which around 250,000 people died between 1989 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-168001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n