{"id":33215,"date":"2017-05-03T13:25:03","date_gmt":"2017-05-03T11:25:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/33215-swiss-extend-detention-of-gambian-ex-minister.html"},"modified":"2017-05-03T13:25:03","modified_gmt":"2017-05-03T11:25:03","slug":"swiss-extend-detention-of-gambian-ex-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/33215-swiss-extend-detention-of-gambian-ex-minister.html","title":{"rendered":"Swiss extend detention of Gambian ex-minister"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"content-excerpt\">\n<p>Switzerland said Wednesday it has extended the detention of former Gambian interior minister Ousman Sonko after \"progress\" in a crimes against humanity probe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Sonko was a top lieutenant of The Gambia's fallen dictator Yahya Jammeh, who was forced from office in January by west African powers after he refused to accept defeat in a December election.<\/p>\n<p>Sonko has been accused of overseeing and committing torture while heading the interior ministry from 2006 to 2016.<\/p>\n<p>He fled to Sweden after Jammeh sacked him in September, before arriving in Switzerland in November.<\/p>\n<p>Swiss authorities arrested Sonko in January and have since interviewed witnesses, seized documents and asked for additional evidence from the new Banjul government led by election winner Adama Barrow.<\/p>\n<p>\"In view of the progress made with the investigations, the (attorney general) has applied ... for pre-trial detention to be extended by a further three months,\" said Linda Studer, a spokeswoman for Switzerland's top prosecutor.<\/p>\n<p>She told AFP in an email that the attorney general's office had taken over the case from local prosecutors in Bern because \"crimes against humanity fall under federal jurisdiction.\"<\/p>\n<p>Sonko's arrest followed criminal complaint filed on behalf of Sonko's alleged victims by the civil society group TRIAL International.<\/p>\n<p>Extending Sonko's detention \"shows the authorities take the allegations against Mr. Sonko seriously,\" TRIAL's director Philip Grant said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Switzerland has jurisdiction in the case because of a 2011 law that obligates the wealthy Alpine nation to investigate anyone on its territory accused of serious international crimes, regardless of where the alleged atrocities were committed.<\/p>\n<p>TRIAL said it was acting on behalf of two people who were tortured by Gambian agents under Sonko's command.<\/p>\n<p>\"Ousman Sonko is accused of having personally taken part in these acts of torture\", TRIAL said.<\/p>\n<p>Sending Sonko to The Gambia is not immediately possible, partly because Switzerland will not extradite a suspect in cases where the death penalty could be enforced.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, the legal capacity of the small west African nation remains limited, with Barrow's government still stabilising after two-decades of Jammeh's dictatorship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Switzerland said Wednesday it has extended the detention of former Gambian interior minister Ousman Sonko after \"progress\" in a crimes against humanity probe. Sonko was a top lieutenant of The Gambia's fallen dictator Yahya Jammeh, who was forced from office in January by west African powers after he refused to accept defeat in a December [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":67272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[],"ji_location":[2509],"class_list":["post-33215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other","ji_location-gambia"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.3.1 (Yoast SEO v25.3.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Swiss extend detention of Gambian ex-minister - JusticeInfo.net<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/33215-swiss-extend-detention-of-gambian-ex-minister.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Swiss extend detention of Gambian ex-minister\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Switzerland said Wednesday it has extended the detention of former Gambian interior minister Ousman Sonko after &quot;progress&quot; in a crimes against humanity probe. 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