Mr. Kosiah has been detained by Swiss authorities since his arrest in Bern in November 2014 on allegations of warfare crimes dedicated within the first Liberian civil warfare. He had moved to Switzerland and bought everlasting residence in 1997 however was detained after a criticism to the Swiss legal professional common’s workplace by the Swiss-based group Civitas Maxima and a Liberian accomplice, the World Justice and Analysis Venture.
The fees in opposition to him embody 18 murders, rape, compelled recruitment of kids to function troopers, enslavement, looting and one act of cannibalism when he allegedly ate the center of a sufferer, stated Alain Werner, the director of Civitas Maxima, who’s representing 4 of the seven Liberian victims as a result of testify within the case.
Mr. Kosiah has denied all costs in opposition to him and denied that ULIMO dedicated any atrocities.
Mr. Werner stated he’ll draw on testimony heard within the Philadelphia trial of Mr. Jabbahteh to exhibit a sample of atrocities by the group. Mr. Jabbahteh acted with “bone-chilling cruelty,” the courtroom dominated in that case. “None, together with the jury that weighed impartially the mountain of proof marshaled in opposition to Jabbateh, would view his conduct as something lower than monstrous.”
The trial is to proceed in two phases. The hearings that opened on Thursday dealt largely with procedural points and arguments introduced by Mr. Werner to improve the costs in opposition to Mr. Kosiah to crimes in opposition to humanity. The proceedings are scheduled to proceed till the top of subsequent week with the listening to on Mr. Kosiah’s response to the costs.
The trial judges, nonetheless, invoking Covid-related security issues, postponed the listening to of proof from seven Liberian victims and witnesses till a date in February, nonetheless to be set.
That delay, the most recent in a sequence of postponements, provides vital stress to the proceedings. Mr. Kosiah has spent six years in pretrial detention, a unprecedented size of time underneath Swiss judicial procedures, elevating the likelihood that the following overview of his detention, due in March, may lead to his launch from custody.
