Final Verdict: Swiss Supreme Court Upholds Alieu Kosiah’s 20-Year Sentence for Lofa War Crimes

Court clears ex-ULIMO commander of crimes against humanity but leaves sentence intact Monrovia – Former ULIMO commander Alieu Kosiah will serve the full 20 years in prison for atrocities committed in Lofa County during Liberia’s civil war, after Switzerland’s Federal Supreme Court upheld his war crimes conviction in a ruling made public Friday. By Rodney Sieh The decision makes final the first war crimes conviction ever handed down by a Swiss civilian court. It is also the first conviction anywhere of a Liberian for war crimes committed during the country’s two civil wars, which ran from 1989 to 2003 and killed an estimated 250,000 people.

Kosiah was found guilty of crimes committed in Lofa between 1993 and 1995, including killing civilians and ordering their killing, rape, using a child soldier, ordering pillage, cruel treatment of civilians, and desecrating the body of a dead civilian through an act of cannibalism. The Appeals Chamber of Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court had found that those crimes alone would justify 150 years in prison. The sentence was reduced to 20 years, the maximum allowed under Swiss law. Crimes Against Humanity Charge Thrown Out In a partial win for the defense, the Supreme Court acquitted Kosiah of crimes against humanity, a conviction the Appeals Chamber added in 2023. The court ruled that the crimes against humanity provision, which entered Swiss law in 2011, cannot be applied to acts committed between 1993 and 1995. The acquittal does not affect his 20-year sentence or his expulsion from Switzerland once he has served it. Lawyers for the victims welcomed the final conviction but criticized the acquittal. “Today the survivors of Alieu Kosiah’s crimes have final justice, more than 30 years after they suffered and twelve years after his…