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January 8th it started in Bellinzona, Switzerland, a trial against Ousman Sonko, former Interior Minister of Gambia during the dictatorship of President Yahya Jammeh, which ended at the end of 2016. Sonko is accused of having participated in, ordered and failed to prevent torture, kidnapping, sexual violence and assassinations against political opponents between 2000 and 2016, which under Swiss law could constitute crimes against humanity. The trial is expected to last about a month and the verdict is expected in March. If convicted, Sonko could face life in prison.
These crimes were allegedly committed in Gambia but the trial is being held in Switzerland due to the so-called “universal jurisdiction”, a principle of international law that allows serious crimes to be prosecuted regardless of where they were committed and the nationality of the suspects or victims . Sonko is the highest-level government official ever prosecuted in Europe under this principle, but trials like his are becoming more common in recent years.
During Yahya Jammeh’s regime, which lasted from 1996 to 2016, Ousman Sonko held several senior positions in the army and police before being elected Interior Minister in 2006. Jammeh’s is described by major human rights organizations as a dictatorship characterized by systematic and widespread human rights violations including arbitrary arrests, torture, sexual violence, extrajudicial executions and forced disappearances of real and perceived opponents of its government. However, several international organizations have accused the current Gambian government of not acting quickly enough in prosecuting these crimes.
Sonko, now 54, fled Gambia in 2016 shortly before Jammeh’s dictatorship was toppled and new elections were called. He went to Switzerland where he requested political asylum, but already in January 2017 he was arrested following a criminal complaint by the Swiss NGO TRIAL International, which had provided the Swiss authorities with evidence of his alleged involvement in the crimes. After six trips to Gambia and dozens of interviews with the alleged victims and several witnesses, the Swiss attorney general he introduced an indictment against Sonko at the Federal Criminal Court, on 17 April 2023. As Interior Minister, Sonko was responsible for the police, the prison service and, allegedly, also for the Junglers, a violent paramilitary group that killed journalists and critics of Jammeh’s government.
During the trial, 9 Gambian people will be heard in court, including plaintiffs and witnesses: among them is Binta Jamba, who accused Sonko of raping her several times after killing her husband in relation to an alleged coup attempt.
Sonko maintains his innocence of all charges. His lawyer, Philippe Currat, claims he can prove that his client was abroad on the days Jamba says she was raped. As for the other accusations, he claims that the Gambia’s national intelligence agency, which was never under the authority of the Ministry of the Interior, was behind these alleged crimes.
Sonko will also try to have charges relating to crimes committed before 2011 declared as inadmissible, the year the principle of universal jurisdiction was introduced into Swiss law. Despite being in place for more than a decade, it is only the second time Switzerland has tried someone under universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity. The first case dates back to June 2023, when the former leader of the Liberian militia Alieu Kosiah, who had resided in Switzerland since 1999, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for various crimes including rape, murder and cannibalism: in that case all The facts date back to the 1990s, therefore before the establishment of the principle of universal jurisdiction.
As mentioned, in recent years the cases based on the principle of universal jurisdiction are increasing and some concern exponents of the Jammeh regime: in October 2023, Germany condemned Bai Lowe, former member of the Junglers, sentenced to life in prison for two murders and one attempted murder deemed crimes against humanity. A trial against another alleged former member of the same group is expected to begin in Colorado, the United States, in the coming months.
These trials have been very positively received by groups that have been calling for years for the crimes committed during Jammeh’s regime to be investigated. Although Gambia has created its own transitional justice process, its performance has been judged to be very slow. On December 24, 2021, the final report of the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) created by the Gambian government established that Jammeh and 69 of his associates committed crimes against humanity and called for their prosecution. On 25 May 2022, the Gambian government formally accepted the TRRC’s recommendation but presented an implementation plan only in May 2023: the plan involves the creation of a special prosecutor’s office to complete the investigations initiated by the TRRC with a view to a trial. Additionally, a hybrid court will be created between the Gambia and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to prosecute the most serious crimes.
Yahya Jammeh currently lives in exile in Equatorial Guinea, where he settled thanks to funds stolen from Gambia’s public coffers before leaving.