Swiss supreme court upholds Liberian ex-rebel commander’s 20-year sentence
Alieu Kosiah killed civilians and unarmed soldiers, and ordered lootings and other crimes against humanity.
Switzerland’s supreme court upheld a 20-year jail sentence for former Liberian rebel commander Alieu Kosiah on Friday, but overturned a conviction for crimes against humanity.
In 2021, Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court found Kosiah, now 51, guilty of multiple atrocities committed during the first of Liberia’s back-to-back civil wars, in which about 250,000 people died between 1989 and 2003.
In 2023, the court’s appeals chamber upheld his 20-year sentence for war crimes and, for the first time in Swiss history, also made a new ruling that Kosiah was guilty of crimes against humanity.
Kosiah’s conviction for violating the law of war was upheld, as was the maximum 20-year custodial sentence imposed.