The investigation chamber of the Paris Court of Appeals over the weekend confirmed the referral to trial in France of Kunti K., former Liberian commander of the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO), for crimes allegedly committed during the Liberian civil war between 1989—1996.
Last year, the investigating Judge, in his closing order requested the indictment of Kunti for crimes of torture and barbaric acts. The prosecutor appealed for the failure to indict for crimes against humanity in addition to crimes of torture and acts of barbarism that had been ordered by the investigating Judge.
Kunti K’s trail will be the first in France since the establishment of war crimes division in 2012, not connected to the 1994 Rwanda genocide. The preliminary investigation against Kunti K. and his arrest were prompted by a complaint file in 2018 by Civitas Maxima and several Liberian plaintiffs it represents.
Both civitas Maxima and the plaintiffs were granted the status of civil parties in the case and are represented by lawyers Simon Foreman and Sabrina Delattre in Paris. In 2019, French authorities, alongside Liberian authorities, travelled of Lofa County, northern Liberia, for a fact-finding mission related to Kunti K’s case. This was the first since the end of the second civil war in 2003 that Liberian authorities, together with foreign authorities, undertook crimes-scene reconstructions related to war time crimes.
The announcement of the Kunti K. trial closely evokes the trial of Alieu Kosiah, which was concluded in March 2021 in Switzerland, and it is expected that a verdict will be reached soon.
Both Kunti K. and Kosiah were ULIMO commanders active in the same region, and are both implicated in alleged heinous crimes against the population of Lofa County.