Article by our special envoy Ngoya Ndiaye from Dakar
A former interior minister of former Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh (1994-2017) was referred to the Swiss Federal Criminal Court “for crimes against humanity”. The information was provided by the Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s Office on Tuesday 18 April 2023.
After an extensive investigation that lasted more than six years, the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPC, Public Prosecutor’s Office) filed its indictment against Ousman Sonko with the federal criminal court on Monday, he said in a statement. He is accused of “supporting, participating and not opposing systematic and widespread attacks carried out in the context of repression by the Gambian security forces against any opponent of President Yahya Jammeh’s regime”.
The MPC reproaches him in particular for having participated, ordered, facilitated and/or failed to prevent murders, acts of torture, rapes and unlawful detention in five events between 2000 and 2016″. Mr. Sonko has been in pre-trial detention since his arrest on 26 January 2017 in Switzerland, where he applied for asylum after being dismissed from his position as Minister of the Interior, which he held for 10 years until September 2016. The investigation involved numerous hearings of the accused, about forty hearings of complaining parties, persons with information and witnesses, as well as 6 trips to Gambia by the Directorate of Procedure in the context of a mutual legal assistance obtained from the Gambian authorities.
Mr. Sonko’s arrest in 2017 followed a criminal complaint filed by the Geneva-based non-governmental organization Trial International, which is fighting impunity around the world. Since 2011, Swiss civil justice has
