The Paris Assize Court sentenced, Wednesday March 27, to thirty years of criminal imprisonment the former rebel commander Kunti Kamara, tried on appeal for acts of barbarism and complicity in crimes against humanity during the first civil war in Liberia (1989-1997).

After three weeks of hearings, the 49-year-old accused was found guilty of a series of "inhumane acts of torture and barbarity" against civilians in 1993-1994, including the ordeal inflicted on a teacher from whom he allegedly ate the heart, the killing of a woman described as a “witch” and forced marches imposed on the population.

According to the decision rendered after more than eight hours of deliberation, this former commander of the United Liberation Movement for Democracy (Ulimo) was also found guilty of having facilitated crimes against humanity through his indifference to the repeated rapes committed on two teenage girls who became sex slaves for soldiers under his authority in 1994.

The court did not follow the requests of the public prosecutor, who had requested life imprisonment on Monday for acts of “exceptional seriousness for which Kunti Kamara is responsible”. The attorney general stressed that the accused exercised “power of command” and that he had shown “no repentance”.

Kunti Kamara, who had obtained political asylum in the Netherlands after lying about his past, was arrested in September 2018 in Bobigny after a complaint from the NGO Civitas Maxima, which fights against impunity. His name emerged in the mid-2010s as part of proceedings initiated in Switzerland against another Ulimo executive, Alieu Kosiah, who was sentenced in Geneva in 2021 to twenty years in prison in the very first trial of Liberian war crimes.

He was sentenced to life in prison at first instance at the end of 2022 during an unprecedented trial which was held under the “universal jurisdiction” exercised by France, under certain conditions, to judge the most serious crimes committed. out of its soil.

Read alsoThe conviction of warlord Alieu Kosiah, a double victory for lawyer Alain Werner

The crimes of this bloody conflict, which left a total of 250,000 dead, have never been judged in Liberia where former rebel leaders now occupy high positions in the state apparatus.

With AFP

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