A former Gambian minister appeared in a Swiss court \u200con Monday to appeal against a conviction for crimes against humanity under ex-dictator Yahya Jammeh.<\/p>\n
Ousman Sonko’s conviction for homicide, torture and false imprisonment in May 2024 was historic since he was \u200bthe highest-ranking former official ever to be tried in Europe using universal \u200bjurisdiction, which allows for the prosecution of the most serious crimes \u2060anywhere.<\/p>\n
Five of the 10 Gambian plaintiffs in the case were present at the \u200bHigher Appeals Chamber of the Federal Criminal Court in the city of Bellinzona alongside \u200bthe defendant, witnesses said.<\/p>\n
Sonko, who acted as interior minister until the former strongman Jammeh dismissed him in 2016, is appealing the ruling for crimes allegedly committed between 2000-2016.<\/p>\n
His lawyer Philippe Currat \u200bargued in court on Monday that many of the alleged acts happened before \u200bthe relevant Swiss legislation took effect in 2011. “The conditions for criminal prosecution are not met,” he \u200csaid \u2060in a statement.<\/p>\n
Plaintiffs and the prosecution are also appealing the ruling with the aim of prolonging his 20-year sentence to life and expanding it to include sexual violence after Sonko was previously acquitted of rape.<\/p>\n
“Sexual violence was a tool of repression \u200bin the Gambia and \u200bthat should be \u2060taken into account and recognized by the Court as such,” said Benoit Meystre, a legal adviser at TRIAL International, which \u200bfiled the original complaint against Sonko and is supporting plaintiffs.<\/p>\n
Sonko \u200bhas already \u2060been in custody over nine years, Currat said.<\/p>\n
Reed Brody, a member of the International Commission of Jurists working with Jammeh’s victims, said the case could help efforts in \u2060the West \u200bAfrican country to prosecute Jammeh-era crimes.<\/p>\n
The hearings are \u200bset to continue until at least April 17. A final appeal is possible against the appeal verdict \u200bbut would typically take place without public hearings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A former Gambian minister appeared in a Swiss court \u200con Monday to appeal against a conviction for crimes against humanity under ex-dictator Yahya Jammeh. Ousman Sonko’s conviction for homicide, torture and false imprisonment in May 2024 was historic since he was \u200bthe highest-ranking former official ever to be tried in Europe using universal \u200bjurisdiction, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10432,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":8,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,27],"tags":[282,1935],"class_list":["post-20324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-west-africa","tag-gambia","tag-ousman-sonko"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20324"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20325,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20324\/revisions\/20325"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}