A second plaintiff told a Swiss court hearing the appeal proceedings of Alieu Kosiah, the Liberian warlord challenging a 20-year sentence for war crimes, that Kosiah’s allies beat and intimidated him for testifying against Kosiah in 2021.
Kosiah, a 47-year-old former commander for the Ulimo rebel group, appealed his conviction in the appeals chamber of the Swiss Federal Criminal Court where he was convicted of 21 of 25 counts including murder, rape, and using child soldiers.
Kosiah faces new charges of crimes against humanity at this hearing and his sentence could be increased if the court finds him guilty.
The plaintiff said this happened to him three months after he had testified against Kosiah when two men with guns knocked him down and threw him to the ground.
The plaintiff, a school teacher, claimed the alleged assault and intimidation began after he was removed from the payroll without explanation. He said that if he got a job again, he would have to move.
He was the second witness in the appeal to claim he had faced retribution for testifying against Kosiah.
A witness earlier told the court that a relative in Monrovia where he lived asked him to leave because he was “risking” his life and “the lives of his children”. (To protect witnesses from the retribution court has ordered that their identities be withheld from the media.)
The plaintiff (the plaintiff is the victim who brought the case against Kosiah) told the court in a hearing last week that he lives in Lofa, where prosecutors say that Kosiah committed the crime in 1993 when Ulimo fought against the National Patriotic Front of Liberia led by then-warlord Charles Taylor.
“I was going to my garden in Zorzor, and I was attacked by four unknown men,” the plaintiff said according to a translated transcript of the trial obtained by Civitas Maximas, a Swiss-based justice activist. “Two of them had AK 47. One of them said, ‘This is it [the plaintiff’s name is withheld at the court’s direction], I know him’. The other said, ‘I was sent to kill him. So let him be killed and let us go.’ When they were arguing, I knelt down and I heard what they were saying.”
Appellant said he left her and ran away when he heard the sound of a motorcycle. The plaintiff did not say who the accused sent them to torture and kill him. “When I woke up, I spoke to a motorcyclist who told me that he had seen someone run away and I told him that he and God had saved my life.”
“After this happened, I told you [my boss] that I don’t want to stay here. I was transferred to another position and had to be transferred. That’s how it affects me and my family.”
As he did in the trial phase of the case, Dimitri Gianoli, Kosiah’s lawyer, sought to cast doubt on the accuracy of the man’s testimony by asking why he did not complain to the Liberian authorities at the time. “I don’t know him, so who am I going to tell in my complaint?” said the witness.
Plaintiffs also accused Kosiah of forcing them to ship looted goods to the Liberia-Guinea border—”forced labor” as one of the counts Kosiah challenged on appeal.
The plaintiff testified that Kosiah, wearing camouflage pants and a shirt, killed the boy who disobeyed Kosiah’s orders to leave the house to join Kosiah and other Ulimo rebels in a pickup truck. He said the boy was afraid he was going to be killed.
“Alieu Kosiah took the pistol to the side, and he shot the boy,” the plaintiff said. “The child fell, and left it there. They went back to the car.”
In his reply Kosiah denied the allegations and questioned the credibility of the witness. “I don’t know the name of this young man,” said Kosiah. “How can we determine what [the plaintiff] said it’s the truth? It all comes down to [plaintiff’s] credibility. For those who are killed, they must be there first.”
Kosiah repeated the accusation that he and the alleged perpetrators of the trial for their role in the Liberian civil war had been made: the Liberian justice lawyer. Global Justice and Research Project (GJRP), which partners with Civitas Maxima, has bribed witnesses to testify. Kosiah refers to GJRP as “NGO”, an acronym for non-governmental organization.
“A connection between [the plaintiff] and I am an NGO,” Kosiah said in court. “If the NGO does not choose me as a target, [the plaintiff] will never know me in his life. [The plaintiff] know only two people in ULIMO – Alieu Kosiah and “Boss War”. It is impossible that people living in Voinjama at that time did not know other people in Ulimo.
The plaintiff also alleged that Kosiah used boys as child soldiers while he was in Lofa. Kosiah pleaded guilty to the charges in 2021 and surprised the court by calling the former child soldier as a witness in his own defense to testify that Kosiah was good to him. The former child soldier requested asylum from the Swiss authorities which was later rejected.
READ ALSO: Kosiah Rejects War Crimes; Repeat Unproven Witness Bribery Claims
He was arrested in Switzerland to testify in Kosiah’s appeal but was removed from court when he used the appearance to protest the Swiss authorities’ handling of asylum claims. He is expected to be deported to Liberia soon.
Another plaintiff said that Ulimo rebels captured and took her and other civilians to Kolahun, where one of the soldiers named Valy took them to a room and raped them. “When they took me by force, I started bleeding. I started crying,” the witness said. “They told me not to cry and said I would get used to it. I was covered in blood and he told me not to try to run because if I tried he would kill me.
They did not say whether Kosiah was present at the time, but are accused of torturing and killing six people with knives and military rifles. “They threw them into the well. They stretched out their intestines and said it was the gate,” he said.
The witness corroborated the testimony of another plaintiff, who survived the incident, was tortured by Kosiah and Kunti Kamara. The plaintiff, a former Ulimo soldier, has testified in the Kamara court, showing his wounds back to the French court as evidence of the injuries he received at the hands of the commanders. He said he did not know whether Kosiah or Kamara had stabbed him during the fight.
Female witnesses also accused Kosiah and other Ulimo soldiers, including Kamara, “Bocah Elek”, and “Bocah Apik” of forcing civilians to eat human body parts.
“They put human pieces in carts and drove us around the airfield,” he said. “They force civilians to eat human flesh. They have guns pointed at us. Maybe they do it too, but we have to do it.
Kosiah has denied all the allegations. The appeal continues next week.
This story was produced in collaboration with New Narratives as part of the West African Justice Reporting Project.
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