Swiss Supreme Court upholds 20-year sentence for Liberian commander — Al Jazeera
Switzerland’s Federal Supreme Court has upheld the 20-year prison sentence of former Liberian rebel commander Alieu Kosiah, who was convicted of war crimes during Liberia’s first civil war. At the same time, the court acquitted him of charges of crimes against humanity.
As Al Jazeera reports, the court rejected Kosiah’s appeal against his conviction for violations of the laws of war committed in 1993–1995. The 20-year term imposed is the maximum punishment in this case.
Partial reversal of the verdict
The court explained the acquittal on charges of crimes against humanity by the strict application of the principle of non-retroactivity of the law. The relevant offence appeared in Swiss legislation only in 2011, so it cannot be applied to acts committed earlier.
In 2023, the appeals chamber upheld the 20-year sentence for war crimes and, for the first time in Swiss history, found Kosiah guilty of crimes against humanity. The Federal Supreme Court’s final ruling overturned precisely this part of the previous verdict.
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Crimes during the war in Liberia
In 2021, Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court found 51-year-old Kosiah guilty of numerous war crimes committed by him as commander of the rebel group United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy. The court established that he ordered or participated in the killing of 17 civilians and two unarmed soldiers, rape, and the recruitment of a child soldier.
Kosiah also ordered looting, repeatedly ordered cruel and degrading treatment of civilians or personally engaged in such treatment, and improperly handled the bodies of the deceased. Kosiah settled in Switzerland in the late 1990s and was arrested in 2014.
Swiss organisation Civitas Maxima said that the decision definitively confirms the first war crimes conviction handed down by a Swiss civilian court, as well as the first conviction worldwide of a Liberian citizen for war crimes committed during the country’s civil wars.
