A former inside minister and enforcer for a violent and autocratic Gambian president was convicted of crimes towards humanity on Wednesday for the torture and executions of civilians and sentenced to twenty years in jail by Switzerland’s federal court docket.
The decision, which one plaintiff referred to as a “milestone” for victims, got here after a landmark trial that was adopted carefully by victims of the federal government’s repression.
The previous minister, Ousman Sonko, 55, was discovered responsible of a number of counts of intentional murder, torture and false imprisonment that had been dedicated, the court docket mentioned, as “a part of a scientific assault on the civilian inhabitants” of the West African nation.
His lawyer mentioned he would attraction the decision.
Mr. Sonko, who moved to Switzerland in 2016 and has been in custody there since he was arrested in 2017, when a human rights group based mostly in Geneva filed a felony criticism towards him, will serve 13 extra years in jail after which face deportation to Gambia. The case was tried in Switzerland beneath the authorized precept of common jurisdiction, which permits states to prosecute severe crimes no matter the place on this planet they had been dedicated.
Mr. Sonko had held a collection of highly effective safety jobs beneath Yahya Jammeh, an eccentric autocrat who dominated Gambia for 22 years earlier than fleeing into exile to Equatorial Guinea after shedding an election in 2017.
Mr. Sonko rose from commander of the presidential guard to police chief after which to inside minister, a submit he held from 2000 to 2016. Throughout that interval, the court docket mentioned, political opponents, journalists and critics of the federal government “had been routinely tortured, executed extrajudicially, arbitrarily arrested and detained.”
Prosecutors accused Mr. Sonko of collaborating within the killing of a soldier suspected of plotting a coup, Almamo Manneh, and of beating and repeatedly raping Mr. Manneh’s widow, Binta Jamba. He was additionally accused of torturing an opposition occasion chief, Ebrima Solo Sandeng, who died in state custody in 2016.
The Swiss court docket didn’t think about that his offenses had amounted to aggravated crimes towards humanity, which might have earned him a life sentence, however it handed him the utmost attainable time period in jail for the lesser cost of non-aggravated crimes.
The court docket additionally didn’t rule on the cost of rape regardless of the testimony of Ms. Jamba that he had violently raped and tortured her. The fees had been dropped, because the court docket considers it a person crime that’s outdoors its jurisdiction.
Annina Mullis, who represented Ms. Jamba, mentioned the choice was a part of a wider sample of courts disregarding rape as a part of systematic violence.
“It’s disappointing that the court docket didn’t take this opportunity to acknowledge sexual violence as a device of repression,” she mentioned.
Benoit Meystre, a lawyer for TRIAL Worldwide, the authorized advocacy group based mostly in Geneva that initiated the case towards Mr. Sonko in 2016, described the decision as “historic.”
European courts have tried various people for crimes beneath common jurisdiction lately, however Mr. Sonko, as a former authorities minister, is essentially the most senior state official to be prosecuted, Mr. Meystre mentioned, serving discover that rank isn’t a assure of impunity.
Fatoumatta Sandeng, a plaintiff within the case and the daughter of the tortured opposition chief, was in court docket to listen to the decision. Afterward, she mentioned in a press release: “I’m very joyful and relieved. The judgment is a vital milestone for us victims.”
She additionally mentioned that “it was good to listen to” that the court docket had lastly acknowledged that Mr. Sonko had been accountable for her father’s dying.
Her lawyer, Nina Burri, expressed remorse that the court docket had not thought of the sexual violence cost as against the law towards humanity however referred to as the decision “an necessary step within the struggle towards impunity” that confirmed even the highest-ranking officers “can’t disguise and can be held accountable.”
Philippe Currat, the lawyer for Mr. Sonko, mentioned in a phone interview on Wednesday after the decision, “We will definitely have a second spherical.”
Mr. Currat mentioned the court docket had failed to tell apart between Mr. Sonko’s particular person position in occasions and the half performed by different actors. “It isn’t as a result of he’s a minister that he’s accountable for every little thing that occurred within the nation,” the lawyer mentioned.
Mr. Sonko, in his protection, mentioned that he had sought to professionalize the police and was by no means in command of the Nationwide Intelligence Company, which had detained and tortured protesters, together with Mr. Sandeng, the opposition chief.
Gambian activists mentioned they hoped that Mr. Sonko’s trial would spur the federal government of President Adama Barrow to take long-promised motion on victims’ calls for for accountability for the crimes of the Jammeh period.
Different plaintiffs in Gambia hailed Wednesday’s verdict.
“Justice has lastly come,” mentioned Madi Ceesay, a journalist who was arrested and tortured in 2006, after he wrote a column criticizing coups, together with the one in 1994 that introduced Mr. Jammeh to energy. Mr. Ceesay’s newspaper, The Unbiased, was additionally shut down.
As a result of Mr. Sonko and Mr. Jammeh wielded such energy, he mentioned, “I’ve by no means thought a day like this might come.”
Mr. Ceesay mentioned that whereas he thought of Mr. Sonko “the person at heart stage” in connection together with his personal arrest and torture, Mr. Jammeh ought to face justice, as effectively.
“He’s the most important fish,” he mentioned of Mr. Jammeh.
Mr. Sonko’s conviction was a lesson to dictators all over the place that they might ultimately be held accountable, he mentioned, including, “There’s nowhere you may disguise on this planet.”
