A former Liberian warlord will appeal a 20-year prison sentence for war crimes in a Swiss court Wednesday, as prosecutors broaden the indictment to include crimes against humanity.
Alieu Kosiah was found guilty in June 2021 of multiple atrocities committed during the first of Liberia's back-to-back civil wars, in which about 250,000 people died between 1989 and 2003.
Switzerland's Federal Criminal Court found him "guilty of violating the laws of war".
The verdict marked the first time a Liberian was convicted -- either in the west African country or anywhere else -- of war crimes committed during the conflict.
The appeal, which opens Wednesday and is expected to last until early February, will also make history: it marks the first time that the most serious charge of crimes against humanity will be tried in Switzerland.
Like war crimes, crimes against humanity refers to atrocities, including murder, torture and rape, but instead of isolated or sporadic events, it is for incidents carried out in a widespread or systematic way.
- 'Widespread atrocities' -
The additional charge is "important for the victims", Raphael Jakob, a lawyer representing one of seven plaintiffs, who have all travelled to Bellinzona in southern Switzerland for the hearings.
It shows, he said, "that these are not isolated acts... but are examples of widespread atrocities committed against the civilian population."
In the lower court, Kosiah was found guilty of a slew of war crimes committed while commander of the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO) armed group.
He ordered or participated in the murder and killing of 17 civilians and two unarmed soldiers, as well as rape, and deploying a child soldier, the court ruled.
He had also ordered lootings and had repeatedly ordered, or himself inflicted cruel and humiliating treatment of civilians, and mishandled corpses, according to that verdict.
He was sentenced to 20 years in prison -- the maximum sentence possible in Switzerland at the time the crimes were committed.
Kosiah, who settled in Switzerland in 1998 and was arrested in the country in 2014, appealed the verdict, maintaining his innocence and requesting an acquittal.
But the fresh trial has provided an opportunity for the plaintiffs to push for the prosecutor to add crimes against humanity to the charges.
- 'Justice' -
"They feel quite confident," human rights lawyer Alain Werner, who represents four of the seven plaintiffs in the case, told AFP.
"They want justice."
The revised charge sheet emphasises that most of the crimes Kosiah is accused of happened within the context of a "generalised and systematic attack" on civilians by ULIMO, justifying the crimes against humanity charge.
A Paris court in November found another former Liberian rebel commander, Kunti Kamara, guilty of crimes against humanity.
But Kosiah's trial marks the first time such a charge is brought in Switzerland.
"For Switzerland, it is very important," Werner said.
Jakob said the appeals trial also provided a significant opportunity for Liberians to follow the proceedings.
The first trial was held amid Covid-19 restrictions, leaving little opportunity for plaintiffs and other Liberians to attend.
"This appeals trial might yield further publicity in Liberia, and support the movement in Liberia that is gearing towards allowing and enabling this kind of prosecution to take place in Liberia itself, rather than abroad," he said.
So far, only a handful of people have been convicted in Liberia itself for their part in the brutal wars and efforts to establish a war crimes court in the country have stalled.
On Tuesday, suspected warlord Gibril Massaquoi appeared in a Finnish appeals court accused of atrocities in Liberia's civil war following his acquittal last year by a lower court.
Former Liberian warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor was convicted in 2012 by the International Criminal Court in The Hague of war crimes and crimes against humanity but that was over atrocities committed in neighbouring Sierra Leone, not in his own country.