GENEVA (Reuters) -A Swiss court on Thursday upheld a guilty verdict for war crimes in the case of a former Liberian rebel commander and also convicted him of crimes against humanity, lawyers for the prosecution told Reuters.
Alieu Kosiah, who fought in the 1990s against then-President Charles Taylor’s army, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in June 2021 for rape, murder and cannibalism.
“The courage and the determination of the victims who fought relentlessly for 30 years has been rewarded. Justice was handed down today and this is a strong message for all perpetrators: they will not escape justice,” Zena Wakim, one of the prosecution lawyers, told Reuters.
The court has not yet released the judgment publicly.
Kosiah’s lawyer denied the charges against him throughout the proceedings and said he was not present when the crimes were allegedly committed.
The case is Switzerland’s first war crimes trial and one of the first international verdicts for acts committed during Liberia’s back-to-back civil wars between 1989-2003 which became infamous for their brutality, with marauding child soldiers and drugged-up fighters.
During the appeal trial at the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona, prosecutors expanded the indictment to include crimes against humanity.
(Reporting by Emma Farge; additional reporting by Augustin Turpin in GdanskEditing by Alison Williams, Kirsten Donovan)
