GENEVA: A former warlord went on trial in Switzerland on Thursday, becoming the first Liberian to face prosecution for war crimes over alleged atrocities during his country’s bloody conflict a generation ago.
Alieu Kosiah, 45, who was arrested in Switzerland in 2014, is accused of murder, and a string of other crimes committed in the first of Liberia’s back-to-back civil wars, which together killed some 250,000 people between 1989 and 2003.
No Liberian has ever been convicted — either in the west African country or anywhere else — of war crimes committed during the conflict.
The trial is being held at Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court in the southern city of Bellinzona.
At the start of proceedings, Kosiah told the judge Jean-Luc Bacher that he had been held in prison “for six years and one month,” the Swiss news agency ATS reported, adding that he was being held in a jail in the capital Bern.
He denies all the charges.
Kosiah was accompanied in court by his duty lawyer, Dimitri Gianoli.
The trial has been repeatedly postponed due to the coronavirus crisis.
But even as Switzerland remains hard-hit by a second wave of COVID-19 infections, the judiciary finally managed to set dates for the initial part of the hearing, which is due to last until December 11.
Kosiah’s alleged victims will not be able to come from Africa to testify until next year.
Lawyer Alain Werner, representing four of the alleged victims, called for the trial to be postponed so that they could be present, or, at least, for the hearings to be live streamed to Liberia. — AFP
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