May 16. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, has expressed his “satisfaction” with the recent 20-year prison sentence imposed by the Swiss Federal Criminal Court against former Interior Minister Ousman Sonko, accused of crimes against humanity. Humanity.
“The sentence of the former minister to 20 years in prison represents a significant advance for the victims in their search for justice for the serious crimes and other human rights violations committed in The Gambia during the government of former president Yahya Jamé, and an important global step in the fight against impunity,” he said.
Turk has issued a statement recalling that Sonko has been found guilty of a series of crimes against humanity in relation to acts of “unlawful killing, torture and arbitrary detention” committed between 2000 and 2016; and he has celebrated this step as an advance in the accountability of perpetrators of serious crimes “beyond the borders of their countries.”
“I encourage other States to build on this and other recent examples and study how investigations and prosecutions of alleged perpetrators of serious human rights violations can be carried out in their own legal systems,” concluded Turk, who insisted on ” reinforce processing efforts in the Gambia itself.”
Sonko fled to Switzerland in 2016 shortly before former president Jamé went into exile after his defeat against Adama Barrow in the elections in December of that year, although he was arrested in 2017 after several complaints against him for these crimes in Gambia. .
Sonko’s trial was possible because Swiss law recognizes universal jurisdiction over certain serious international crimes, allowing the prosecution of these crimes regardless of where they were committed or the nationality of the suspects or victims.
The charge sheet states that Sonko “killed, tortured, intentionally raped people and also deprived them of their freedom” from 2000 to 2016 under the dictate of then President Jamé, and initially acting as a member of the Gambian Army, then as Inspector General of the Police and finally as Minister of the Interior.
Sonko is the second Gambian tried in Europe for crimes in the African country, after the case in Germany against Boi Lowe, a former member of a paramilitary unit known as Junglers, also created by Jamé. Lowe was sentenced to life in prison in November 2023 for crimes against humanity.
In his last appearance before the verdict, Sonko denied all charges and said that the Junglers’ use of torture was clearly unacceptable and that police forces under their control were never involved. The sentence can still be appealed.
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