Ex-minister bags 20 years imprisonment

A Swiss court has convicted a former Gambia minister on Wednesday.

He was convicted after being guilty of homicide under former dictator Yahya Jammeh.

Sonko, who was dissolved as Gambia’s interior minister in 2016, was vindicated of rape.

The court said in a statement, “In its verdict … the trial chamber found Ousman Sonko guilty of multiple counts of intentional homicide, multiple counts of torture and multiple counts of deprivation of liberty, each as a crime against humanity,”.

“The Trial Chamber concludes that Ousman Sonko committed these crimes…. as part of a systematic attack against the civilian population.”

Sonko is the highest-ranking official ever to be tried in Europe using universal jurisdiction which allows the most serious crimes to be prosecuted anywhere.

The original criminal complaint against Sonko was submitted by the Geneva-based campaign group TRIAL International, which also provided support to the plaintiffs.