Gambia's former interior minister is tried in Switzerland for crimes against humanity.
Ousman Sonko fled there in 2016, shortly before Gambian President Yahya Jammeh, accused of leading a repressive regime, lost power.
Mr Sonko was arrested after non-governmental organizations provided evidence of his alleged involvement in human rights abuses.
However, his lawyer said he was not responsible for the incident.
The AFP news agency quotes Philippe Currat as saying that the Gambia National Intelligence Agency “never existed”...under [his] authority” was behind the alleged crimes.
Switzerland is prosecuting this case on the basis of the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows states to prosecute individuals on their territory even if the alleged crimes were committed elsewhere.
human rights groups say the case could serve as a warning to repressive governments around the world that the legal arm could last for a very long time indeed.Switzerland's allegations against Mr. Sonko are extensive.
Includes engaging in or ordering murder, torture, and rape, all directed against political opponents. This could constitute a crime against humanity under Swiss law.
Swiss investigators arrived in Gambia and questioned dozens of alleged victims and witnesses. Nine of them will testify in court.Mr Sonko is the highest-ranking government official ever to be prosecuted in Europe under universal jurisdiction.
From 1996 to 2016, The Gambia was led by President Yahya Jammeh, whose term was marked by “widespread abuses, including enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings,” according to Human Rights Watch.
Mr. Sonko was Mr. Jammeh's right-hand man, and his role as interior minister put him in charge of the security services, including the supposedly shadowy paramilitary group called the Junglers.
But in 2016, shortly before Jammeh himself lost power, Sonko fled to Switzerland, where he applied for asylum.
He was arrested a few months later after the NGO Trial International provided Swiss authorities with detailed information about the abuses in which he was allegedly involved.
After six trips to Gambia and 40 interviews with the applicants, the Swiss Attorney General drew up an indictment Benoit Meystre of Trial International believes that the application of universal jurisdiction is “a fundamental legal principle that sends a signal to other [suspected] criminals.”. Who can't go unpunished - or at least without a trial.
The case against Mr Sonko is considered particularly important.Although many European countries have begun to apply universal jurisdiction, he is the highest-ranking former government official to ever make such an attempt.
This is only the second time that Switzerland has tried a person under universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity.
In the first case, former Liberian militia leader Alieu Kosiah was sentenced to 20 years in prison in June 2023 for crimes including rape, murder and cannibalism.Other countries are also prosecuting former members of the Jammeh regime.
In October, Germany sentenced Bai Lowe, a former member of the Junglers, to life in prison for crimes against humanity.
Later this year, a court in the US state of Colorado will begin the trial of an alleged former member of the same group.
Although The Gambia has created its own transitional justice process to address abuses committed under Mr Jammeh's rule, human rights groups say its work has so far been very slow.
Even in the Swiss trial against Mr Sonko, one of the plaintiffs who had been scheduled to testify died before the case came to court.But for those who do testify, "being invited before a court of law, to tell their stories, is a way for them to heal. And if the federal court does reach a guilty verdict, it will be an enormous relief for them.
They will get the answers they have been waiting for for many years,” said Trial International’s Meystre.