Liberian ex-warlord guilty of rape, murder and cannibalism
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GENEVA • A former Liberian warlord has been found guilty of war crimes - including murder and cannibalism - in Switzerland's criminal court.
It is the first conviction specifically for atrocities in Liberia's back-to-back civil wars from 1989 to 2003, in which an estimated 250,000 people died.
The court found Alieu Kosiah, 46, guilty on 21 of 25 charges, including ordering the killing of 13 civilians and two unarmed soldiers, the murder of four other civilians, rape, and using a child soldier in armed hostilities.
Kosiah, a former commander of the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy, was sentenced on Friday to 20 years in prison, the maximum allowed under Swiss law.
"This is a landmark judgment, not only because it is the first war crimes conviction against a Liberian commander, but because it shows it is possible to convince a court with testimonies of victims, even almost 30 years after the facts," said Mr Alain Werner, director of the Geneva-based legal organisation Civitas Maxima, which represented some of the plaintiffs.
Switzerland recognises universal jurisdiction, which allows for the prosecution of serious crimes committed in other countries.
The trial was the first time Swiss federal courts prosecuted war crimes in the decade since they took over jurisdiction from military tribunals.
Human rights groups saw the trial as a milestone event for both Liberia and Switzerland. No Liberian perpetrator of atrocities has faced prosecution in Liberia.
In a trial lasting more than a month, the court heard gruesome testimonies of executions and civilian torture during Liberia's first civil war.
A woman testified by video from Monrovia, Liberia's capital, that she had been repeatedly raped by Kosiah. Witnesses also described how one of Kosiah's associates hacked open the chest of a church schoolteacher and ripped out his heart, which he and Kosiah ate.
Kosiah was living in Switzerland when he was arrested in November 2014 and has already spent six years in pre-trial detention, which will be deducted from his sentence.
NYTIMES
