A former internal minister and enforcer for a violent and autocratic Gambian president was once convicted of crimes in opposition to humanity on Wednesday for the torture and executions of civilians and sentenced to twenty years in jail by means of Switzerland’s federal court docket.
The decision, which one plaintiff referred to as a “milestone” for sufferers, got here next a landmark trial that was once adopted intently by means of sufferers of the federal government’s repression.
The previous minister, Ousman Sonko, 55, was once discovered in charge of a couple of counts of intentional murder, torture and fake imprisonment that had been dedicated, the court docket stated, as “part of a systematic attack on the civilian population” of the West African nation.
His attorney stated he would enchantment the decision.
Mr. Sonko, who moved to Switzerland in 2016 and has been in custody there since he was once arrested in 2017, when a human rights workforce based totally in Geneva filed a felony criticism in opposition to him, will lend 13 extra years in jail and nearest face deportation to Gambia. The case was once attempted in Switzerland underneath the prison concept of common jurisdiction, which permits states to prosecute severe crimes without reference to the place on this planet they had been dedicated.
Mr. Sonko had held a layout of tough safety jobs underneath Yahya Jammeh, an eccentric autocrat who dominated Gambia for 22 years ahead of absconding into exile to Equatorial Guinea next dropping an election in 2017.
Mr. Sonko rose from commander of the presidential defend to police leading and nearest to internal minister, a publish he held from 2000 to 2016. All through that duration, the court docket stated, political fighters, newshounds and critics of the federal government “were routinely tortured, executed extrajudicially, arbitrarily arrested and detained.”
Prosecutors accused Mr. Sonko of taking part within the killing of a soldier suspected of plotting a coup, Alameh Manneh, and of thrashing and time and again raping Mr. Manneh’s widow, Binta Jamba. He was once additionally accused of torturing an opposition birthday celebration chief, Ebrima Solo Sandeng, who died in circumstance custody in 2016.
The Swiss court docket didn’t believe that his offenses had amounted to irritated crimes in opposition to humanity, which can have earned him a future sentence, nevertheless it passed him the utmost imaginable time period in jail for the lesser rate of non-aggravated crimes.
The court docket additionally didn’t rule at the rate of rape in spite of the testimony of Ms. Jamba that he had violently raped and tortured her. The costs had been dropped, because the court docket considers it a person crime this is outdoor its jurisdiction.
Annina Mullis, who represented Ms. Jamba, stated the verdict was once a part of a much broader trend of courts brushing aside rape as a part of systematic violence.
“It’s disappointing that the court failed to take this chance to recognize sexual violence as a tool of repression,” she stated.
Benoit Meystre, a attorney for TRIAL World, the prison advocacy workforce based totally in Geneva that initiated the case in opposition to Mr. Sonko in 2016, described the decision as “historical.”
Ecu courts have attempted a host folks for crimes underneath common jurisdiction lately, however Mr. Sonko, as a former executive minister, is probably the most senior circumstance reliable to be prosecuted, he stated, serving understand that rank isn’t a word of honour of impunity.
Fatoumatta Sandeng, a plaintiff within the case and the daughter of the tortured opposition chief, was once in court docket to listen to the decision. Later on, she stated in a remark: “I am very happy and relieved. The judgment is an important milestone for us victims.”
She additionally stated that “it was good to hear” that the court docket had in spite of everything known that Mr. Sonko were answerable for her father’s loss of life.
Her attorney, Nina Burri, expressed feel sorry about the court docket had no longer regarded as the sexual violence rate as against the law in opposition to humanity however referred to as the decision “an important step in the fight against impunity” that confirmed even the highest-ranking officers “cannot hide and will be held responsible.”
Philippe Currat, the attorney for Mr. Sonko, stated in a phone interview on Wednesday next the decision, “We will certainly have a second round.”
Mr. Currat stated the court docket had failed to differentiate between Mr. Sonko’s person function in occasions and the section performed by means of alternative actors. “It is not because he is a minister that he is responsible for everything that happened in the country,” the attorney stated.
Mr. Sonko, in his protection, stated that he had desire to professionalize the police and was once by no means in control of the Nationwide Prudence Company, which had detained and tortured protesters, together with the opposition chief Mr. Sandeng.
Gambian activists stated they was hoping that Mr. Sonko’s trial would spur the federal government of President Adama Barrow to jerk long-promised motion on sufferers’ calls for for responsibility for the crimes of the Jammeh month.
Alternative plaintiffs in Gambia hailed Wednesday’s verdict.
“Justice has finally come,” stated Madi Ceesay, a journalist who was once arrested and tortured in 2006, next he wrote a column criticizing coups, together with the only in 1994 that introduced Mr. Jammeh to energy. Mr. Ceesay’s newspaper, The Isolated, was once additionally close i’m sick.
As a result of Mr. Sonko and Mr. Jammeh wielded such energy, he stated, “I’ve never thought a day like this could come.”
Mr. Ceesay stated that week he regarded as Mr. Sonko “the man at center stage” in connection together with his personal arrest and torture, Mr. Jammeh must face justice, as smartly.
“He’s the biggest fish,” he stated of Mr. Jammeh.
Mr. Sonko’s conviction was once a lesson to dictators in all places that they might ultimately be held responsible, he stated, including, “There’s nowhere you can hide in the world.”
