- Switzerland’s highest criminal court has convicted former Gambian interior minister Ousmane Sonko of crimes against humanity.
- Sonko was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in the crackdown under former dictator Yahya Jammeh.
- Sonko, who was in prison from 2006 to 2016, was accused of murder, torture and false imprisonment.
Switzerland’s highest criminal court on Wednesday found Gambia’s former interior minister guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to 20 years in prison for his role in a crackdown by security forces during the country’s long-standing dictatorship. This was announced by a legal advocacy group.
Prosecutors were seeking a life sentence for Ousmane Sonko, who served as Gambia’s interior minister under then-President Yahya Jammeh from 2006 to 2016, according to Trial International.
A federal criminal court in the southern town of Bellinzona ruled that Sonko’s crimes, which included murder, torture and false imprisonment, amounted to crimes against humanity. But they did not pursue an “aggravated” case that could carry a maximum sentence of life in prison, according to several lawyers who attended the trial.
Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko addresses supporters after months in prison
The trial, which began in January, was hailed by advocacy groups as a watershed application of the principle of “universal jurisdiction,” which allows prosecutions for serious crimes committed abroad.
Legal advocacy group Trial International announced on Wednesday that Ousmane Sonko, pictured above, had been sentenced to 20 years in prison. (AP Photo/Sylvain Cherkaoui, File)
Activists and legal experts say the ruling could send a message to Jammeh, who fled Gambia and is living in exile in Equatorial Guinea.
Benoît Maistre, a legal adviser for Trial International, who also attended the hearing, said Sonko, who was in court for Wednesday’s reading of the verdict, barely reacted when the English translation was read.
Sonko applied for asylum in Switzerland in November 2016 and was arrested two months later. The Swiss attorney general’s office said the indictment against him filed a year ago includes 16 years of alleged crimes under the Jammeh regime, marked by arbitrary detention, sexual abuse and extrajudicial killings. He said that
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Sonko was accused of aiding and participating in The Gambia, an English-speaking West African country surrounded by neighboring Senegal, and failing to stop attacks against its opponents. Prosecutors said the crimes included murder, torture, rape and numerous illegal detentions.
“This unprecedented conviction, based on universal jurisdiction in Europe, confirms that justice is beyond anyone’s reach,” Maistre said in a text message. “Even the most powerful people can be held accountable for their participation in mass atrocities.”
Madi M.K. Ceesay, an award-winning journalist who was once arrested on Sonko’s orders and testified at his trial, told The Associated Press that the trial “remains true that no matter what happens, the long hand of justice will always be there.” “This showed that we can catch the culprit,” he said.
Reed Brody, a US human rights lawyer who attended the trial, said Sonko’s conviction was a vital step towards justice for Jammeh’s victims.
“The long hand of the law is catching up with Yahya Jammeh’s accomplices around the world and, hopefully, soon with Jammeh himself,” he said.
Sonko was convicted of murder, torture and false imprisonment for crimes against humanity, but the rape charges against him were dropped, Brody wrote in X.
Outside the courtroom, the defendant’s daughter Olimatou Sonko told Swiss public broadcaster SRF that it was “unfair” that all proceedings in the trial were not translated from German to English, but her father was unable to translate them into English. I can’t understand.
Philippe Grant, executive director of Trial International, which brought the case against Ousmane Sonko in Switzerland before his arrest, said he was the highest-level former official tried in Europe under the principle of universal jurisdiction. He said that he was a person.
According to Swiss prosecutors, Sonko joined the Gambian army in 1988 and was appointed commander of the national guard in 2003, responsible for security in Jammeh. He was appointed Inspector General of Gambia Police in his 2005 year.
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He was sacked as interior minister in September 2016, months before the end of Jammeh’s regime, and left Gambia to seek asylum in Europe.
Ousmane Sonko is not to be confused with Ousmane Sonko, a powerful Senegalese politician whose first name is spelled slightly differently.
Jammeh came to power in a coup in 1994. He lost Gambia’s 2016 presidential election, but refused to concede defeat to Adama Barrow and ultimately fled amid threats of regional military intervention to remove him from power.
Amnesty Switzerland said of Even the minister could be prosecuted! The victims and their families will finally see justice.”
