Swiss court convicts a former interior minister of Gambia for crimes against humanity

GENEVA — Switzerland’s top criminal court on Wednesday convicted a former Gambian interior minister of crimes against humanity for his role in a crackdown by the West African country’s security forces under its longtime dictator, a group said. legal defense.

Ousman Sonko, Gambia’s interior minister from 2006 to 2016 under then-president Yahya Jammeh, was sentenced to 20 years in prison, TRIAL International said on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

The trial that began in January was seen by advocacy groups as an opportunity to achieve a conviction under “universal jurisdiction,” which allows for the prosecution of serious crimes committed abroad.

The sentence was read Wednesday at the Swiss federal criminal court in the southern city of Bellinzona.

Sonko sought asylum in Switzerland in November 2016 and was arrested two months later.

The Swiss attorney general’s office said the indictment against Sonko, filed a year ago, covered alleged crimes committed over 16 years under Jammeh, whose rule was marked by arbitrary detentions, sexual abuse and extrajudicial executions.

Sonko was accused of supporting, participating in and failing to stop attacks against opponents in The Gambia, an English-speaking West African country surrounded by neighboring Senegal. The crimes included murder, torture, rape and numerous illegal detentions, prosecutors said.

Madi MK Ceesay, an award-winning journalist who was once arrested under Sonko and who testified at the trial, said the verdict would likely send a strong signal to Jammeh, who remains in exile in Equatorial Guinea.

“The trial shows that no matter what happens, the long arm of justice can always catch the perpetrator,” Ceesay told The Associated Press.

Reed Brody, an American human rights lawyer who attended the trial, said Sonko’s conviction was a critical step toward justice for Jammeh’s victims.

“The long arm of the law is reaching out to Yahya Jammeh’s accomplices around the world and, hopefully, it will soon reach Jammeh himself,” he said.

Sonko was found guilty of murder, torture and false imprisonment as crimes against humanity, while rape charges against him were dropped, Brody wrote in X.

Philip Grant, executive director of TRIAL International, which brought the Swiss case against Sonko before his arrest, said he was the highest-level former official ever tried in Europe under the principle of universal jurisdiction.

Sonko, who joined the Gambian army in 1988, was appointed commander of the State Guard in 2003, a position in which he was responsible for Jammeh’s security, Swiss prosecutors said. He was appointed Inspector General of the Gambia Police in 2005.

He was dismissed as interior minister in September 2016, a few months before the end of Jammeh’s government, and left The Gambia to seek asylum in Europe.

Ousman Sonko should not be confused with the prominent politician Ousmane Sonko of Senegal, who spells his name slightly differently.

Jammeh took control in a coup in 1994. He lost the Gambian presidential election in 2016, but refused to concede defeat to Adama Barrow and eventually fled amid threats of regional military intervention to force him out of office. can.

“The ruling against Ousman Sonko is a milestone in the fight against impunity and a historic success for universal jurisdiction in Switzerland and Europe,” wrote Amnesty Switzerland in X. “Even former ministers can be prosecuted! “The victims and their families finally see justice.”

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John reported from Serrekunda, Gambia.