Trial over crimes against humanity in Liberia opens in Paris

Kunti Kamara, 47, is accused of “complicity in massive and systematic torture and inhumane acts” against civilians in Liberia’s Lofa county in 1993-1994, as one of the leaders of the Ulimo armed group.

He was then less than 20 years old.

Kamara, who faces life in prison, denied committing such acts.

“I’m innocent,” Kamara told the court, adding that he does not know any of the witnesses accusing him.

Kamara was arrested near Paris in 2018, following a complaint filed by Swiss-based group Civitas Maxima, which specialises in helping victims of crimes against humanity.

During the investigation, he acknowledged having been a battlefield commander, leading about 80 soldiers during the civil war – a choice he said he made to defend himself against a rival faction.

According to court documents, he is being accused of having hit a man and then opened his chest with an axe in order to extract and eat his heart.

He is also accused of having allowed and abetted, in his position of authority, rape and sexual torture, and of having compelled people into forced labour under inhumane conditions.

The trial has been made possible under a French law that recognises universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity and acts of torture.

Kamara said he left Liberia after the end of the first civil war in 1997 and later went to the Netherlands, then Belgium before going to France about two years before he was arrested.

Hassan Bility, head of the Global Justice and Research Project, said the trial was “a victory for Liberian victims and a warning to perpetrators that no matter where they are, we’re going to make sure they’re held accountable for the crimes they committed in Liberia”.

Bility’s non-governmental organisation is dedicated to the documentation of wartime atrocities in Liberia and to assisting victims in their pursuit of justice.

Human Rights Watch and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) stressed that Liberia’s first civil war was especially marked by “violence against civilians, as warring factions massacred and raped civilians, pillaged, and forced children to kill and fight”,

Elise Keppler, associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch, said the trial is especially important due to “the failure of Liberian authorities to hold to account those responsible for serious crimes during the civil wars”.

“France’s trial for atrocities in Liberia reinforces the importance of the principle of universal jurisdiction to ensure that the worst crimes do not go unpunished,” said Clemence Bectarte, a lawyer who co-ordinates FIDH’s litigation action group.

Liberia’s back-to-back civil wars killed an estimated 250,000 people between 1989 and 2003.

The country’s post-war truth and reconciliation commission in 2009 recommended the prosecution of dozens of ex-warlords and their commanders bearing greatest responsibilities for the war.

But successive governments have largely ignored the recommendations, much to the disappointment and frustration of war victims.

Political analysts say this is largely because some key players in the war have occupied influential positions in government, including in the legislature, since the end of the war nearly 30 years ago.

The current president, George Weah, spoke against impunity for war crimes when he was in opposition, but has shown reluctance to respond to citizens’ calls for the establishment of a war crimes court.

The Paris trial, scheduled to last four weeks, is the fifth dealing with crimes against humanity and torture in France. Previous cases concerned crimes related to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.