Former Gambian interior minister Ousman Sonko is set to stand trial in Switzerland on Monday, facing charges related to crimes against humanity committed during the rule of ex-dictator Yahya Jammeh.
The trial operates under the principle of universal jurisdiction, allowing a foreign nation to prosecute crimes such as humanity, war crimes, and genocide, irrespective of the location where they occurred.
Sonko served as the interior minister in The Gambia, a small West African nation under Jammeh’s firm control from 1994 to 2016.
He has been in custody since his arrest in Switzerland in January 2017, seeking asylum after being dismissed as a minister.
Sonko, who will turn 55 on Tuesday, was apprehended following a complaint by the Geneva-based NGO Trial International.
Leslie Haskell, president of Trial International, stated, “He is the highest-ranking state official ever to be tried for international crimes in application of the principle of universal jurisdiction in Europe.”
Sonko is accused of “having supported, participated in, and failed to prevent systematic and generalized attacks as part of the repression carried out by the Gambian security forces against all opponents of the regime.”
He refutes all the charges, as per his attorney Philippe Currat.
If convicted, he could be sentenced to life imprisonment.
The trial, scheduled to span a month, unfolds in the town of Bellinzona in Switzerland’s southern Italian-speaking region.
However, the proceedings will be conducted in German, one of Switzerland’s four national languages. This has prompted complaints from lawyers who are dissatisfied that only segments of the hearing will be translated into English, posing challenges for Gambians to fully comprehend the proceedings.
A verdict is not anticipated until March.
The charges encompass a 16-year period and involve nine counts of crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, and torture.
The case has 10 complainants, comprising eight “direct victims” and the daughter of an individual who died in detention, as per Trial International.
“This trial offers hope for the victims of several decades of repression in The Gambia to get answers about the crimes committed against the Gambian population,” remarked Benoit Meystre, Trial’s legal adviser.
This marks Switzerland’s second trial related to crimes against humanity.
In June, a Swiss appeals court upheld a 20-year sentence for former Liberian warlord Alieu Kosiah, confirming his war crimes conviction and, for the first time in Swiss history, handing down a verdict of crimes against humanity.
Jammeh ruled The Gambia for 22 years but fled the country in January 2017 after losing a presidential election to relative unknown Adama Barrow.
Jammeh refused to acknowledge the results but was forced out by a popular uprising and fled to Equatorial Guinea.
Before becoming a minister, Sonko was inspector general of The Gambia’s national police and also served as commander of the national guard, responsible for the president’s protection.
Currat, Sonko’s lawyer, says responsibility for events described on the charge sheet falls to the national intelligence agency and not his client.
“This agency has never been under the authority or control, in fact or law, of Ousman Sonko,” Currat mentioned.
Caroline Renold, a lawyer for three of the complainants, said that Sonko could not have failed to know about “all the atrocities which were committed while he was a senior official in the security system”.
“And on the other hand, he is accused of having participated directly in atrocities,” she said.
The trial is not the first dealing with Jammeh-era crimes to be held outside of The Gambia.
In late November, a German court sentenced a Gambian man to life in prison over his participation in a death squad that assassinated opponents of Jammeh.
Gambia’s government said last year it was working with West African regional bloc ECOWAS to set up a tribunal to try crimes committed under Jammeh.
