Crimes against humanity in Liberia: a former rebel commander tried on appeal in Paris

Ex-rebel commander Kunti Kamara has been on appeal since Tuesday March 5 in Paris following his life prison sentence handed down at the end of 2022 for acts of barbarity and complicity in crimes against humanity during the first Liberian civil war (1989-1997). This former commander of the United Liberation Movement for Democracy (or Ulimo, for United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy, in English) was tried at first instance during an unprecedented trial in France which was held in October and November 2022.

The Paris Assize Court then sentenced the former militiaman, born in 1974, to life imprisonment for a series of abuses against civilians in 1993-1994, including the torture inflicted on a schoolteacher whose meat he allegedly ate. heart, and for his passivity during the repeated rapes of two teenage girls by soldiers under his authority. He had appealed and found himself once again in the dock, wearing a black down jacket and emaciated features.

Unspeakable atrocities

Arrested in the Paris region in September 2018, Mr. Kamara was tried in Paris under the “universal jurisdiction” exercised, under certain conditions, by France to judge the most serious crimes committed outside its soil. This is the first time that this mechanism was used for acts committed in a country other than Rwanda.

During the trial in 2022, Kunti Kamara proclaimed his innocence and claimed to be the victim of a “conspiracy”. Before the Assize Court, several complainants and witnesses who came specially from Liberia had however certified that the accused was indeed the “C.O. Kundi” – for “commanding officer” – who allegedly contributed to a reign of terror in the northwest of the country, which fell into the hands of Ulimo in the early 1990s.

Unspeakable atrocities were recounted during the first instance trial: residents murdered by being forced to drink boiling water, the trade in human meat, intestines used as checkpoints, rape by means of a bayonet dipped in salt.

For the three weeks of the appeal trial, witnesses and plaintiffs will again come from Liberia, despite the “testing process” that this new trial represents, but with “the hope that it will be able to lift a little the veil on what it was,” explained before the hearing the lawyer for the eight civil parties, Sabrina Delattre. The trial is scheduled to last until March 29.