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Mr. Kosiah has been detained by Swiss authorities since his arrest in Bern in November 2014 on allegations of conflict crimes dedicated within the first Liberian civil conflict. He had moved to Switzerland and bought everlasting residence in 1997 however was detained after a criticism to the Swiss lawyer basic’s workplace by the Swiss-based group Civitas Maxima and a Liberian associate, the International Justice and Analysis Challenge.
The costs in opposition to him embody 18 murders, rape, pressured recruitment of kids to function troopers, enslavement, looting and one act of cannibalism when he allegedly ate the center of a sufferer, mentioned Alain Werner, the director of Civitas Maxima, who’s representing 4 of the seven Liberian victims as a consequence of testify within the case.
Mr. Kosiah has denied all prices in opposition to him and denied that ULIMO dedicated any atrocities.
Mr. Werner mentioned he’ll draw on testimony heard within the Philadelphia trial of Mr. Jabbahteh to display a sample of atrocities by the group. Mr. Jabbahteh acted with “bone-chilling cruelty,” the court docket 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 offered 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 tip 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 collection of postponements, provides important 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 subsequent evaluation of his detention, due in March, may lead to his launch from custody.
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