The journalist Musa Saidykhan also says: "Anyone who has been through torture is a different person afterwards." In March 2006, Gambian police arrested him after he reported an attempted coup and took him to intelligence headquarters. But Saidykhan refused to reveal information about his sources - even after he had already been tortured for days.

Nokoi Njie was a fighter, says her daughter Isatou Ceesay. For many years her mother was a member of Gambia's main opposition party. In 2016, she was arrested near an anti-government demonstration. In prison, the henchmen of long-time Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh threatened her: she would be hanged and fed to the crocodiles. Njie died in September 2023. She fought for justice until the end. Her daughter continues the fight.

Three traumatic stories. And a man who plays a leading role in each of them: Ousman Sonko, Interior Minister of Gambia in Jammeh's government from 2006 to 2016. Sonko is said to be at least partly responsible for the acts of violence against Binta Jamba, Musa Saidykhan and Nokoi Njie.

From next Monday he will stand before the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona. The number of trial days scheduled alone provides an indication of the weight of the case: 17 full trial days are scheduled for the trial in January, and a further 5 reserve dates are blocked in March.

The federal prosecutor's office accuses Sonko of numerous violent crimes - so serious that prosecutors believe they should be classified as crimes against humanity. These can be brought to justice anywhere in the world - regardless of the nationality of the perpetrator and victim, regardless of the crime scene. The so-called "principle of universal jurisdiction" makes this possible because these crimes are so serious "that they represent a violation of the rights of the entire international community," as international law professor Anna Petrig explains in an interview with the Republic.

Switzerland enshrined the criminal law basis for the prosecution of these crimes into the penal code in 2011. After the trial against Liberian ex-commander Alieu Kosiah, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the Appeals Chamber of the Federal Criminal Court in June 2023, the Sonko trial is only the second to be conducted in Switzerland for crimes against humanity. It is also the first time in Europe that such a high-ranking official has to stand trial under the principle of universal justice.

The Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona will therefore not only have to clarify fundamental questions about how Switzerland deals with violations of international law. It will also set a precedent that will have an impact beyond national borders. In particular, the people who experienced Sonko's violence and that of the regime itself will follow closely how Switzerland handles this case.

To what extent do senior politicians bear responsibility for the violence of a repressive regime? When are crimes considered a "systematic attack against the civilian population" and therefore a crime against humanity? And is a Swiss court even allowed to judge crimes that were committed before this offense was included in Swiss criminal law?

These questions will be at the center of the negotiation.


Ten plaintiffs, 150 pages of indictment
Gambia, a small country with around two and a half million inhabitants on the West African coast, almost completely surrounded by Senegal, was under the rule of Yahya Jammeh from 1994 to 2017. Its regime is said to have systematically tortured, extrajudicially killed and caused numerous people to disappear. Ousman Sonko became the central figure in this regime. He rose to become interior minister and is said to have been the dictator's right-hand man.

A new president, Adama Barrow, has been in power since 2017, and both Jammeh and Sonko fled the country. Sonko came to Switzerland, where he applied for asylum. In 2017 he was arrested in an asylum center in Bern and placed in custody. Sonko has complained dozens of times about the lengthy detention and prison conditions, but has so far been unsuccessful. Last April, the Federal Prosecutor's Office finally indicted him after years of investigations.

The central element of the indictment against Sonko is the statements of ten private plaintiffs. Binta Jamba, Musa Saidykhan and Nokoi Njie are three of them. The Republic spoke to the widow Jamba, the journalist Saidykhan and the daughter of the late Njie. The following descriptions are based on these conversations - and on the 150-page indictment against Ousman Sonko.

The accused denies all allegations. He is presumed innocent.

Those affected have great hope in the Swiss justice system. That the Federal Criminal Court's verdict recognizes their suffering and enables them to come to terms with the past.

Can the trial in Bellinzona bring justice?


Widowed and raped
When Binta Jamba talks about the events of that day in January 2000, her voice trembles with anger. She avoided the name Ousman Sonko when the Republic spoke to her via video call at the beginning of December. She now lives in the USA and switches on from her car. Instead of Sonko, she talks about the "person" – saying his name is too painful.

A few hours before she found out about the murder of her husband Almamo Manneh, Ousman Sonko, then a captain in the state guard, showed up at her house, accompanied by several soldiers. They confiscated the family's money and valuables. To this day she has not received anything back from it. When her husband didn't come home from duty in the state guard that day, one of her husband's work colleagues called the president's private residence and inquired about Manneh's whereabouts. The president himself said: "Turn on the television at 6 p.m. and you'll know what happened."

According to the indictment, Sonko and the soldiers he led had lured their colleague Almamo Manneh into an ambush the night before. There they opened fire on him.

In a detailed statement that he submitted to the federal prosecutor's office at the end of the hearings, Sonko writes: Manneh had planned a coup against President Jammeh and resisted his arrest. The shots the men fired were in self-defense. However, in a hearing before a Gambian investigative committee, a former associate said: He believes it is more likely that Sonko wanted to get rid of his own boss and his close confidant Manneh in order to grab power.

After the murder, Ousman Sonko allegedly evicted Binta Jamba from her house, which was on the grounds of a military base. She and her children moved in with her mother. A few days later, Ousman Sonko appeared there. That day he raped her for the first time. And then again and again. Only later did she learn that Sonko was one of the men who fired the fatal shots at her husband.

For two years he regularly ambushed her, forcing her to meet him in hotels or sending his driver to bring her to him. At countless of these meetings he subjected her to sexual violence. Jamba became pregnant twice, both times Sonko forced her to have an abortion. "I try to forget, but these memories will stay with me for the rest of my life," she says today.

It wasn't until June 2003 that Jamba was able to obtain a visa to the United States and flee - without her children. In January 2005 she returned to The Gambia to visit her children. According to the indictment, Sonko had Jamba kidnapped and imprisoned shortly after her return. He tortured her severely again for five days. He raped her many times before she managed to escape.

The accusation against Ousman Sonko in relation to Binta Jamba is: "Multiple rape, grievous bodily harm, coercion and aggravated deprivation of liberty", charged as a crime against humanity. Sonko denies this and accuses Jamba of lying. As an alibi, he submitted documents that were supposed to prove that he had been abroad for further training during the relevant period. According to Jamba's lawyer Annina Mullis, the evidence is incomplete.


When is violence systematic?
Sonko denies not only these but all allegations made against him. In his opinion, the crimes he is accused of do not constitute crimes against humanity. The prerequisite for this is that these are not committed in isolation, but rather as part of an "extensive or systematic attack against the civilian population and with knowledge of the attack". Not only the actions themselves, but also their context is crucial.

This context is not present in the allegations against Sonko, says his defense attorney, Geneva lawyer Philippe Currat, in an interview with the Republic: "An attack against the civilian population does not just consist of the addition of individual crimes. These must also be linked in terms of content in order to prove a systematic attack." Such a systematic pattern of offenses is not apparent in the indictment against Sonko.

It is the first of three central arguments with which Sonko and his defense team want to obtain an acquittal.

The death of Jamba's husband in 2000 marked the beginning of Sonko's rise within the Gambian power structure. In the years that followed, he first rose in the military, was then appointed Inspector General of Police and finally appointed Minister of the Interior by Yahya Jammeh in November 2006.

At this point, Jammeh had already ruled for over 10 years. To take action against dissidents, he had set up a paramilitary unit, the "Junglers". This death squad, which tortured real and perceived opponents of the regime and carried out extrajudicial killings, reported directly to the president.

The atrocities of the Gambian regime are not only being discussed in Switzerland. A foreign judgment has already been made: On November 30, 2023, a German court sentenced a former "jungler" to life imprisonment. The court found the man guilty of three murders and one attempted murder "in conjunction with crimes against humanity by killing".

"This verdict is crucial for the trial against Sonko," says Vony Rambolamanana from the non-governmental organization Trial International. She filed a criminal complaint against Sonko in January 2017. "With the verdict, the German court has confirmed that the Junglers' murders were not isolated, but occurred in the context of crimes against humanity," says Rambolamanana.


What did Sonko know? What did he order?
In numerous cases, the Federal Prosecutor's Office accuses Sonko of complicity. The indictment states that he committed the crimes as part of a group of perpetrators consisting of President Jammeh, members of the NIA secret service (now SIS), the police, the prison services and the "Junglers".

What responsibility does Sonko have?

This question arises, for example, in the case of Musa Saidykhan, who was tortured for days in 2006, when Sonko was Inspector General of Police. Saidykhan has worked as a journalist in Gambia since the 1990s. "Even as a teenager, I saw that many people in my country don't have a voice," he says in a conversation via video call. He wanted to write from the perspective of these people. Saidykhan also joins the conversation from the USA – shortly before he starts his shift. Today he works in the nursing sector and also runs a Gambian exile medium.

His family discouraged him from journalism. "For obvious reasons," as he says today. Nevertheless, in 1997 Saidykhan started as a reporter for the Daily Observer, Gambia's first daily newspaper. He later became editor-in-chief of the Independent newspaper. "Speaking truth to power" was always his motivation, he says – to counter the power of the regime with truth. The price he paid for it was high.

In 2005, Saidykhan traveled to South Africa as a member of the journalists' union. He met with the then South African president and asked him to do something about the escalating violence against media workers in Gambia.

After his return, Saidykhan was arrested and interrogated as an alleged "traitor". He was quickly released, but from then on he was under constant surveillance. "I often had to sneak out of the office and take a taxi home as a security measure and to remain unobserved," he says. Shortly before, a prominent journalist had been murdered by the regime.

Then arried March 21, 2006. In the twelfth year of Jammeh's rule, there was another coup attempt. To investigate the impending coup, the government set up a committee of inquiry. He is said to have tortured, interrogated and forced confessions from people whom Jammeh suspected of being involved in plans for an uprising. According to the indictment, Sonko was part of a panel that initiated these interrogations.

The editorial team of the Independent learned at the time that a senior minister had been arrested and published an article about it. Just a day after the publication, police and soldiers knocked on Saidykhan's front door. They took him to the NIA headquarters. There he was held in a cramped cell for more than two weeks - by representatives of the secret service, the "Junglers" and the police, which Sonko headed.

For several days, the "Junglers" led Saidykhan into the courtyard of the headquarters every morning, where they inflicted "great physical and psychological suffering" on him, the indictment says. They are said to have beaten him and tortured him with electric shocks and then interrogated him. After three weeks in detention and many hours of torture, he was released.

According to the indictment, Sonko's complicity arises, among other things, from the fact that police officers under his command were involved in questioning Saidykhan and must have learned about the torture. In addition, Sonko was personally present in prison, addressed Saidykhan directly and told him that everything that was happening was "the will of God". He was therefore involved in the execution of the crime through "significant collaboration based on the division of labor".

Sonko denies all this. In his statement to the Federal Prosecutor's Office, he writes that the police units under his command "never took part in the actions" of which they are accused. He would "never have allowed something like that." On the contrary: he "took all appropriate measures" to prevent such actions. The order to torture Saidykhan neither came from him nor was it carried out by his subordinates.

It is the second of the three central arguments of his defense: He is being accused of things for which he is not responsible.

The private plaintiffs, on the other hand, describe him as an important player in the system of violence and torture. And Vony Rambolamanana from Trial International also says: "From our point of view, it is clear: Sonko was a close confidante of Yahya Jammeh and therefore presumably partly responsible for the regime's violent acts."

A few months after Saidykhan was arrested, the president appointed Sonko interior minister.

"Take her to the place"
Ten years later, on April 14, 2016, in Serrekunda, Gambia's largest city, several dozen people gathered at the central intersection of Westfield Junction at midday for a political rally. New elections were imminent, Jammeh's rule was beginning to shake, and crowds were protesting for electoral reform.

The peaceful rally was not approved, the police broke it up and arrested around 50 people. According to the indictment, Interior Minister Sonko ordered the police to take 5 people he identified as ringleaders to the secret service headquarters.

One of them was Nokoi Njie. At that time she was one of the leaders of the main opposition party in parliament, the United Democratic Party (UDP). Njie was arrested along with her party colleague Solo Sandeng.

According to the indictment, they were tortured and then interrogated at the secret service headquarters. The "Junglers" beat them with whips made from car tires, poured ice-cold water over their bodies and gave them electric shocks. At the federal prosecutor's hearing, Njie will later state: "There was blood everywhere in this room, it smelled of blood. They beat me and smashed my head against the wall."

Solo Sandeng did not survive this ordeal. Nokoi Njie watched as her ally was tortured to death. Njie was hospitalized. They were later taken to the notorious "Mile 2" central prison near the Gambian capital Banjul.

"Mile 2" runs like a common thread through the indictment. Almost all of the plaintiffs were imprisoned there at some point, and many of them experienced torture. "The food in the prison was so bad that even the cats on the premises didn't want to eat it," Njie later told a hearing. Sand was mixed into the couscous before it was served to the prisoners.

"I can clearly remember the day my mother was arrested," said Njie's daughter, Isatou Ceesay, when Republic spoke to her in December. Ceesay still lives in Gambia with her four children. The 40-year-old joins in from her living room in Mandinari. The family didn't know where Njie was for weeks, she says. After she found out from a party member, she visited her mother in prison every day. "There were always six or seven masked soldiers behind my mother," remembers Ceesay.

One sentence stayed with Njie even years after her imprisonment: "Take them to the place". Sonko said these words shortly before she and four other people were taken to the secret service torture chamber. Njie later told her daughter.

It is one of the statements that suggests what responsibility Sonko had as an accomplice in the system of violence based on the division of labor: He presumably gave orders and instructions that resulted in violence and torture.

But can this be proven?

The halting processing
In December 2016, Jammeh's rule came to an end after his political opponent Adama Barrow was surprisingly elected as the new president. Jammeh only gave up when the Senegalese military invaded the country. He fled into exile in Equatorial Guinea, where he still lives today.

The new government under Barrow has since been tasked with healing the wounds left by Jammeh's regime after 22 years of authoritarian rule. As part of this process, she set up the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission, or TRRC for short. This interviewed alleged victims and perpetrators of the regime for two years. Jamba, Saidykhan and Njie also testified.

In December 2021, the commission published its final report. It describes the oppression of the Gambian civilian population in 16 chapters. About the "Junglers" it says: "They hid the bodies of those killed in various places, including on Yahya Jammeh's farms." In 2015, Human Rights Watch spoke of torture and killings, "widespread human rights violations" and a "pervasive climate of fear."

Philippe Currat, Sonko's defense attorney, takes the position: "The indictment provides no evidence that there was a systematic attack against the civilian population in Gambia." Sonko writes in his statement: "I firmly deny that there was such a state policy against the civilian population in Gambia between 1994 and 2016 or even 2017." He adds: "Everything in my career (…) shows how important respect for human rights and improving the situation in my country were to me." Swiss asylum policy, of all things, could play into Sonko's hands with this argument. The State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) has been working with the Gambian migration authorities since 2008. Until 2016, they reported to Ousman Sonko.

The SEM provided the Gambian officials with materials and training, but also organized deportations of rejected asylum seekers to Gambia. Upon request, the SEM justified this as follows: "According to the SEM's assessment, there was no general situation of violence in Gambia due to which the civilian population had to be described as being at specific risk." The Federal Administrative Court has confirmed this view several times.

Vony Rambolamanana from Trial International, who has worked as a lawyer in asylum law for a long time, says: "Many asylum applications are rejected, even if dictatorships rule in a country and violence is used against parts of the population." When making the asylum decision, the authorities focused on individual stories "and gave less consideration to the larger context." The Federal Criminal Court could therefore not rely on the SEM's decisions in this case.

However, Sonko's defense attorney argues not only in terms of content, but also in form: crimes that Sonko is said to have committed before 2011 could not be prosecuted according to the principle of universal jurisdiction; because Switzerland only incorporated crimes against humanity into criminal law in 2011 and courts are not allowed to make decisions retroactively.

It is the third central argument for Sonko's acquittal that the defense attorney puts forward.

The Federal Prosecutor's Office sees it differently and has also included the alleged crimes from the years 2000 to 2011 in the indictment. The court will also have to make a fundamental decision on this issue.


"…otherwise I can never find peace"
The Gambian Truth Commission TRRC also made recommendations to the current government under Adama Barrow in its report. It calls for legal reforms or a new constitution. And the prosecution of all those involved in violence under the Jammeh regime.

But many survivors of the regime are disappointed with the process so far. "My mother needed health care after she was tortured. She never got it," says Isatou Ceesay. Ultimately, she probably died as a result of the long-term effects of the torture. Ceesay even says: "The current government is even worse than the one under Jammeh." Other people from Gambia made similar comments: Because Barrow governs in a coalition with Jammeh's party, the process of coming to terms with the issue is stalling.

After all, the current government has passed two laws that are intended to serve as a basis for implementing the truth commission's recommendations. Among other things, it wants to set up a hybrid court under the joint leadership of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) and Gambia in order to prosecute the violent perpetrators of the Jammeh regime. It has also promised reparations for the survivors.

But will these ever be paid out? In 2010, an Ecowas court awarded journalist Saidykhan $200,000 in compensation. The now 49-year-old never received the money. Now the political will is there in the government, he says. But it works too slowly. To this day he is still in pain from the torture.

"After my testimony before the TRRC, I never heard anything from the commission or the government through official channels again," says Binta Jamba. Due to the physical and psychological stress she was exposed to, she is now unable to work. "Everything was taken from me," she says.

She is one of the few Gambian women to speak publicly about her rape. "Many women came to me and told me about their own experiences," she says. But no one wants to talk about it publicly. The topic is taboo.

In Switzerland, too, the judiciary was wrestling with Binta Jamba's case. The federal prosecutor's office initially did not want to include the violence against Jamba in the indictment. Presumably because she didn't place the case in the context of crimes against humanity. She did not provide a precise reason for this.

Jamba and her lawyer Annina Mullis defended themselves, arguing that sexual violence was used systematically in Gambia and as a means of political repression. Within the present context, these acts would also have to be qualified as crimes against humanity. The Federal Prosecutor's Office ultimately followed this argument.

Jamba hopes that a verdict from Switzerland could help their pain to be recognized in Gambia. "If I don't get justice, I can never have peace of mind." Jamba was never able to bury her husband's body.



The Republic will report on the trial, which begins on Monday 8th January 2024 in Bellinzona - and also on the verdict as soon as it is determined.


About the authors
The freelance journalist Anina Ritscher has already written several stories for the Republic and is part of our team of court reporters. Jennifer Steiner and Lorenz Naegeli, who has also written for the Republic, are part of the WAV research collective.