The Paris Court of Appeal on Monday, September 25, ordered the provisional detention of a former soldier, indicted in mid-September on suspicion of crimes against humanity during the civil war in Liberia, a source said on Monday. judicial request by the AFP. Contacted by AFP, his lawyer Me Margaux van der Have did not wish to comment, saying she was “dismayed by this judgment, which goes against the prior decisions of two magistrates”.
This man of Liberian origin, former officer of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) of rebel leader Charles Taylor, was indicted on September 13 for acts allegedly committed in Liberia, in the counties of Nimba and Bong, between March 1, 1994 and August 1996, a source close to the matter told AFP. He is accused of violence, torture, in his name, and possibly as an accomplice.
Some 250,000 deaths between 1989 and 2003
Born in 1965, he had lived in France for more than twenty years, is in a relationship and a father, and managed a bar in the Grand Est, according to another close source. The investigation was carried out by gendarmes from the Central Office for the Fight against Crimes Against Humanity and Hate Crimes (OCLCH). The man had been placed under judicial supervision against the advice of the national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office, which requested his placement in pre-trial detention, and who had therefore appealed.
The civil war in Liberia, which left 250,000 dead between 1989 and 2003, was one of the deadliest conflicts on the African continent, with massacres, mutilations, rapes, acts of cannibalism and forced recruitment of child soldiers.
No trials have to date been held in Liberia on abuses committed in this country, but several have taken place abroad. A former rebel commander, Kunti Kamara, was sentenced in November 2022 in Paris to life imprisonment for being complicit in crimes against humanity. He announced his intention to appeal.
