Swiss trial of former Gambia minister starts
Switzerland yesterday put a former Gambian minister under ousted dictator Yahya Jammeh on trial for crimes against humanity on Monday in a milestone case in which a serial rape victim will testify after a multidecade wait for justice.
Former interior minister Ousman Sonko will become the highest-ranking official to be tried in Europe under the principle of universal jurisdiction that allows grave crimes to be prosecuted anywhere, said Swiss campaign group Trial International, which filed the complaint against him.
Nine Gambian plaintiffs will travel to Switzerland for the scheduled January 8-30 trial at the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona in a case rights activists see as ensuring global accountability for the worst atrocities.
Sonko, 54, faces charges including murder, multiple rape, and torture from 2000 to2016 in Switzerland’s second trial for crimes against humanity. He denies the charges.
“It has been a long period of waiting, waiting with anger, anxiety. But I am very optimistic now and I feel so happy. I am smelling justice,” said Madi Ceesay, a 67-year-old plaintiff who says he was detained and tortured under Sonko.
The defendant’s lawyer, Philippe Currat, planned to ask the court to abandon the case, citing problems with the investigations and hearings.
“Since the beginning I have been stupefied by the way this file has been handled,” he said. Some of the evidence in the indictment is based on “secret” hearings in Gambia and interviewees had not been informed of their rights.
One of the plaintiffs is Binta Jamba who, according to the indictment, was raped multiple times by Sonko from 2000 to 2002 after he murdered her husband in connection with an alleged coup attempt.
Once, in 2005, he held her captive for five days, beating her and raping her repeatedly, the indictment reads. She fell pregnant by him twice and he paid for the abortions.
“Me and my family have been struggling with this for almost 25 years now,” she said in a message. “Without justice I will never have peace in my life.”
Currat says he can prove that Sonko was abroad during much of the period of the rape accusations.
He will also argue that many of the alleged crimes against humanity, including the rape charges, happened before the relevant Swiss law took effect in 2011 and are inadmissible.
Sonko, 54, was arrested in early 2017 in Switzerland, where he was seeking asylum. Jammeh’s 22-year repressive rule ended in January 2017 after he had lost an election and was forced to flee.
Sonko could face a life sentence as the maximum possible penalty.
Currat says his treatment in Swiss jails has been cruel and that he was denied food and given inadequate medical care.
Fatoumatta Sandeng, the daughter of Solo Sandeng, a Gambian opposition activist killed in custody in 2016, said she is eager to look into Sonko’s eyes in court.
“If we don’t hold people accountable, things like this will keep happening in Gambia, in Africa, [and] all over the world,” she said.
IF WE DON’T HOLD PEOPLE ACCOUNTABLE, THINGS LIKE THIS WILL KEEP HAPPENING ... ALL OVER THE WORLD
Fatoumatta Sandeng Daughter of murdered activist