Switzerland Convicts Liberian Warlord in Landmark Case

02/06/2023

The Swiss Federal Criminal Court's appeals chamber in the southern city of Bellinzona upheld Alieu Kosiah's earlier war crimes conviction as well as a sentence of 20 years behind bars. 

Kosiah was found guilty of war crimes by Switzerland's Federal Criminal Court in June 2021 due to multiple atrocities in the first of Liberia's back-to-back civil wars. 

Judges in Switzerland's first-ever war crimes trial found him "guilty of violating the laws of war" alongside charges of rape, murder and cannibalism. 

Kosiah settled in Switzerland in 1998 and was arrested in 2014. He appealed against that verdict, pleading his innocence and demanding an acquittal. 

However, the appeals chamber backed the earlier court decision and agreed that, after serving his sentence, the now 48-year-old should be deported and barred from re-entering Switzerland for 10 years. 

Notably, it agreed with the prosecutor and plaintiffs' charge that his actions deserved the more serious tag of crimes against humanity. 

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