Liberian warlord waiting for verdict

A Swiss appeals court was to hand down its verdict in the case of a former Liberian warlord accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity yesterday.

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 around 250,000 people died between 1989 and 2003.

Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court in the southern city of Bellinzona found him “guilty of violating the laws of war”.

Kosiah, who settled in Switzerland in 1998 and was arrested in the country in 2014, appealed the verdict. The 48-year-old maintains he is innocent and has requested a full acquittal.