Switzerland’s top criminal court on Wednesday convicted a former interior minister of Gambia for crimes against humanity and sentenced him to 20 years over his role in repression committed by the west African country’s security forces under its longtime dictator, a legal advocacy group said. Prosecutors had been seeking a life sentence for Ousman Sonko, Gambia’s interior minister from 2006 to 2016 under then-President Yahya Jammeh, TRIAL International said.
The trial, which began in January, was hailed by advocacy groups as a watershed application of the principle of 'universal jurisdiction,' which allows for the prosecution of serious crimes committed abroad. Activists and legal experts say the verdict could send a message to Jammeh, who fled Gambia and remains in exile in Equatorial Guinea.
He was removed as interior minister in September 2016, a few months before the end of Jammeh’s government, and left Gambia to seek asylum in Europe. Ousman Sonko is not to be confused with leading politician Ousmane Sonko in Senegal, who spells his first name slightly differently. Jammeh seized control in a 1994 coup.
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