Acts of barbarism, rape, summary executions: for the first time, a French assize court is judging, from Monday, October 10, crimes against humanity committed in the 1990s during the civil war in Liberia, where these abuses have not been the subject of any trial.
In the box stands the commander of one of the rebel groups that have plagued this small West African country. 47-year-old Kunti Kamara is accused of having himself perpetrated or supervised “inhuman acts”ranging from forced labor to murder accompanied by cannibalism, in the county of Lofa (north-west), between 1993 and 1994. He disputes the facts.
French universal jurisdiction
Arrested in 2018 in Bobigny, Kunti Kamara appears more than 6,000 kilometers from his native Liberia. His trial is organized under the “universal jurisdiction” of France, which allows it to try the most serious crimes wherever they were committed, once the suspect is arrested on its territory.
Hailed by NGOs as a ” not important “ against impunity, this trial will plunge into the first of the two civil wars in Liberia (1989-1996) which caused a total of 250,000 deaths and are among the most atrocious conflicts on the African continent.
“Total impunity” in Liberia
“Liberia is a country where total impunity still reigns in relation to these crimes, and this trial is therefore very important to bring the voice of the victims to the surface”explained to AFP, before the opening of the trial, Me Sabrina Delattre, who represents several Liberians and the Civitas Maximas association, behind the case.
After collecting testimonies from victims, this NGO filed a complaint in July 2018 against Kunti Kamara in France, where he had been living for two years. This had led to the appointment of an investigating judge from the Parisian center responsible for crimes against humanity.
His investigation led him to travel twice to Lofa County, where the United Liberation Movement for Democracy in Liberia (Ulimo), of which Kunti Kamara was a member, was active. « battlefield commander ». This rebel group was particularly at grips with the faction of Charles Taylor, who is serving a fifty-year prison sentence in the United Kingdom for crimes against humanity in neighboring Sierra Leone.
“Inhumane acts”
Known to victims under the alias « CO Group »Kunti Kamara became an accomplice to a “massive and systematic practice of inhumane acts” perpetrated against the civilian population and inspired “both for political and ethnic reasons”according to the indictment.
In particular, he would have subjected one of his victims to the torture of after all – which consists of tying elbows and wrists behind the back of his victim sometimes until death, before cutting out his heart and eating it. The accused would also “deliberately tolerated” the gang rapes of two young women, one of whom filed a civil action.
“Kunti Kamara disputes the facts. He said he had been an Ulimo soldier but always denied committing abuses against civilians.says one of the lawyers, Marlyne Secci, adding that her client “Approach this trial as someone who is going to be tried in a country that is not his own”.
Filmed trial
This will be one of the challenges of this trial, filmed to constitute archives: to allow a popular jury, assisted by three magistrates, to judge the facts committed thirty years ago in a conflict with complex roots. To shed some light on them, Liberian victims, an expert and a photographer present in Liberia during the conflict will take part in the debates, scheduled until 4 November. “We will all have to be very careful that the jurors understand the historical, cultural and political context of this conflict”observe Me Dry.
France, whose “universal jurisdiction” currently the subject of a legal battle, is not the first country to try crimes in Liberia. In June 2021, the Swiss justice sentenced the ex-commander of Ulimo Alieu Kosiah to twenty years in prison. Another executive of this group, Mohammed Jabateh, is serving a thirty-year prison sentence in the United States for perjury. “The victims, still very traumatized, need this justiceemphasizes M.e Delattre, but they fear pressure from former rebels whose networks remain very powerful in Liberia. »