Former Jammeh Minister Ousman Sonko Sentence To 20 Years In Prison

Former Gambian minister of Interior Captain Ousman Sonko who have been standing trial on human rights violations including murder and rape during the dictatorial rule of Yahya Jammeh becomes the second Gambian tried and convicted abroad for crimes they committed in The Gambia. Switzerland's Federal Criminal Court on Wednesday ruled that former Gambian Interior Minister Ousman Sonko was guilty of crimes against humanity committed while in several positions of authority from 2000 to 2016. Trial International said on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that Sonko had been sentenced to 20 years in prison. Ousman was initially arrested and detained in Sweden where he filed asylum in 2015. He was later denied asylum by the Swedish and deported to Spain where he first landed after leaving the Gambia. Sonko managed to traveled to Swiss where he filed asylum for the second time. He was later arrested there and detained until Trial International file a case against him for muder, torture, rape and muder.

Sonko had denied all charges during the trial. He is the most senior official ever to be tried in Europe using universal jurisdiction that allows the most serious crimes to be prosecuted anywhere. What was Sonko accused of? Sonko, 55, was accused by Swiss prosecutors of carrying out a number of serious offenses, including murder, torture and rape, between 2000 and 2016 under the regime of former Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh. He was said to have committed the crimes first within the army, then as inspector general of the police and finally as the interior minister from 2006 to 2016. A number of civil parties testified during the trial.

His lawyers had argued that Sonko should not be tried for crimes against humanity because the alleged offenses were isolated acts for which he had borne no reponsibility. They said the offenses were rather committed by the National Intelligence Agency and the Junglers paramilitary group, over neither of which he had authority or control, according to the lawyers.

The former interior minister, who was sacked from The Gambia's government in 2016, has been in Swiss custody since he was arrested in January 2017 after applying for asylum. Jammeh ruled The Gambia in authoritarian manner from 1994 to 2016. He went into exile in Equatorial Guinea in January 2017. It could be recalled that The Federal court of Germany had earlier on tried and Sgt. Bai Low to life in prison for the Muder journalist Deyda Hydara and others.