Sonko’s defense lawyer raises serious accusations against federal prosecutors
Published: Monday, Jan 8th 2024, 19:41
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On the first day of the trial, the defense counsel for former Gambian Interior Minister Ousman Sonko called for the proceedings to be dropped and made serious allegations against the Office of the Attorney General. The Federal Criminal Court must now decide by Tuesday on issues such as Switzerland's jurisdiction.
The Geneva-based lawyer considers his client's fundamental rights to have been violated. He even assumes that the Office of the Attorney General in The Gambia is conducting secret investigations. By analyzing expense reports from the Office of the Attorney General and the Federal Police, the lawyer attempted to show that for several days it was completely unclear which investigative activities had been carried out by the police and the Office of the Attorney General.
He also stated in the context of the preliminary questions that Swiss criminal law was not applicable to a substantial part of the charges. In addition, acts committed before January 1, 2011 could not be prosecuted due to the prohibition of retroactivity. Only then did the criminal offenses relating to crimes against humanity come into force in Switzerland. The crimes charged fall within the period from 2000 to 2016.
The lawyer also listed numerous steps in the proceedings in which, in his opinion, mistakes were made or his client's rights were violated. For example, the interviewees in Gambia were not informed of their rights.
The lawyer demanded that the evidence, which in his opinion was tainted by errors and violations of the law, be removed from the files. As there was hardly any material left for an indictment, the proceedings should be discontinued.
Factual response
In response to the points raised, the public prosecutor clearly explained why, in her opinion, Switzerland was indeed responsible for prosecuting the crimes charged. She denied the statute of limitations postulated by Sonko's lawyer for a significant part of the indictment.
The question of the statute of limitations arose in a similar way in the trial against the Liberian Alieu Kosiah, who was convicted of crimes against humanity in the second instance last year.
The public prosecutor described the accusations of falsification, secret investigations and a parallel dossier not accessible to the accused made by the defense attorney as "defamatory insinuations". In this context, she referred objectively and calmly to the crimes of false accusation and defamation offenses.
The representatives of the ten private plaintiffs underpinned the statements made by the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland as to why the Swiss Criminal Code and international agreements oblige Switzerland to prosecute the crimes charged.
Systematic attack
The federal prosecutor's office accuses the 55-year-old, who is 55 as of Tuesday, of having committed numerous crimes between 2000 and 2016, mainly in complicity with other members of the leadership. The federal prosecutor's office holds Sonko personally responsible for the multiple rapes of the widow of a killed soldier.
All acts were committed as part of an extensive and systematic attack against the civilian population during the time of the then President Yahya Jammeh and are to be qualified as crimes against humanity.
The charges, divided into five counts, cover a period of 16 years during which Sonko made a career within the civil service. He rose rapidly in the State Guard from May 2003.
He was appointed Inspector General of Police in February 2005 and Minister of the Interior in November of the following year. He was removed from office in September 2016. Before his arrest in January 2017, he lived undisturbed in the Kappelen-Lyss BE transit asylum center.
The trial is expected to last until the end of January. The federal prosecutor will announce the requested sentence as part of its plea. The trial will continue tomorrow at 1 pm. (Case SK.2023.23)
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