Liberia: Swiss Court Set to Hear Charges Against Accused Ulimo Civil War Criminal Alieu Kosiah

Bellinzona — History is being made in this Swiss town, the capital of the Canton of Ticino, where, thousands of miles away from the West African state of Liberia, a former warlord of the country's brutal civil war will go on trial Thursday for war crimes committed during the height of the conflict.

It is only the second time in Swiss history that a figure from a major civil conflict is going on trial. Alieu Kosiah was a commander of a faction of the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO) between 1993 and 1995. In 2001, a Swiss military court upheld a 14-year sentence for a former Rwandan mayor, Fulgence Niyonteze, who was sent to prison in Geneva for his part in the 1994 genocide.

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