GENEVA: A former Liberian warlord was jailed for 20 years in Switzerland on Friday, becoming the first person from the country to be convicted of war crimes committed during the bloody conflict there a generation ago.

In a ruling hailed as “historic”, Alieu Kosiah, 46, was found guilty of multiple atrocities committed during the first of Liberia’s back-to-back civil wars, in which about 250,000 people died between 1989 and 2003.

Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court in the southern city of Bellinzona said in a statement it had found Kosiah “guilty of violating the laws of war”.

The verdict marks the first time a Liberian has been convicted -- either in the west African country or anywhere else -- of war crimes committed during the conflict.

“This is completely historic,” human rights lawyer Alain Werner, who represented four of the seven plaintiffs in the case, said.

He said the verdict, and especially the fact that the judges had so clearly stated they believed the accounts of the victims who have been fighting for years for justice was “an enormous relief”. Human Rights Watch also hailed the “landmark” conviction.

“The verdict is a breakthrough for Liberian victims and the Swiss justice system in cracking the wall of impunity,” Balkees Jarrah, HRW’s associate international justice director, said in a statement.

Published in Dawn, June 19th, 2021