On February 3, 2021, the trial of Gibril Massaquoi, also known as the “Angel Gabriel,” began in Finland. Massaquoi is accused of committing serious war crimes, including “alleged direct or indirect participation in rapes, murders, cannibalism and using child soldiers,” as a leader of the Revolutionary United Front, a rebel group in Sierra Leone involved in the Liberian Civil War. Meanwhile, the trial of Alieu Kosiah, a commander of the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy, is also underway in Switzerland. His charges include “18 murders, rape, forced recruitment of children to serve as soldiers, enslavement, looting.”

 

Background

In the wake of civil conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leona, the two nations have taken different approaches in handling war criminals. In Liberia, the post-war Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended amnesty for criminals who felt remorse for their crimes. Those who were not given amnesty were recommended for prosecution. This prosecution never came, and no Liberian war criminal has ever been convicted.

In contrast, Sierra Leone, a neighboring state facing a similar justice quandary, created a special court for the purpose of trying specific war criminals. This court tried 10 individuals and found nine guilty of crimes.

The confounding element is that despite these two different approaches, two former war criminals, one from Sierra Leone and one from Liberia, are being tried in two separate European countries, Finland and Switzerland, respectively.

 

Two Case Studies in Justice

In Finland,  Gibril Massaquoi, also known as the “Angel Gabriel,” began trial in early February for charges of serious war crimes, including “alleged direct or indirect participation in rapes, murders, cannibalism and using child soldiers.” While his group the Revolutionary United Front was Sierra Leonean, they committed atrocities in Liberia, all of which occurred from 1999 to 2003 during the Liberian Civil War.

Massoqoui was a witness in the UN-Backed Special Court for Sierra Leone. He was relocated to Finland in 2008 as part of Witness-protection. Prior to trial, Massoquoi had been living and working in Finland with his family for the past 10 years. Though the special court of Sierra Leone was unable to find justice for his victims, he may still held accountable for some of his crimes.

A trial in Switzerland for Alieu Kosiah, a commander of the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy, is also underway. His charges include “18 murders, rape, forced recruitment of children to serve as soldiers, enslavement, looting.” This is the first non-military court trial due to hold a war criminal accountable. Another landmark feature of the trial is that Kosiah will be relocated to Liberia for hearings.

Switzerland and Finland have both taken important actions against these two individuals alleged to have committed war crimes in Liberia. Hopefully, these latest trials will be enough to bring justice to the victims of the conflict in Liberia.

 

 

 

 

On October 26, 2020, Felicien Kabuga, implicated as a key perpetrator in the Rwandan genocide, was extradited to The Hague to face seven charges, including genocide and attempt to commit genocide. French authorities first arrested him in Paris. However, many parties, including Interpol and Rwandan authorities, were involved in the effort to find and charge the man who has been at large for over a quarter century. Initially, Kabuga was to be extradited to Arusha, Tanzania where the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) was to begin the trial. However, Kabuga, now 87, claimed that his health was too poor from him to travel. At first, a French appellate court ruled he was safe to make the journey. But ultimately, because the courts had insufficient medical records for Kabuga, they moved him to The Hague to avoid a move as strenuous as the planned extradition to Arusha.

He is thought to have funneled money into militia groups. At the outbreak of the Rwandan genocide, Kabuga was the chairman of the National Defense Fund. He was also the richest man in Rwanda, having made his fortune in tea profits. He was related to the former president of the country through marriage.

One of the charges against Kabuga is conspiracy. His business was thought to be a base for aiding the creation of plans for the genocide. Furthermore, Kabuga was the main owner of a radio station used to promote anti-Tutsi propaganda. Though reward for Kabuga’s whereabouts was set to 5 million dollars, he had previously evaded capture by assuming different identities and moving from country to country. At his initial trials in France, Kabuga referred to these allegations as “lies”.

This trial has several serious implications. It proves that the MICT is able to flexibly find a way to provide justice for the victims of the genocide, regardless of whether or not the accused uses his or her advanced age or poor health as a buffer to stand trial. Furthermore, the success of French authorities in arresting and extraditing him indicates that international integration and cooperation can yield tremendous results for law enforcement. It has been 25 years since those 800,000 lives were lost, due to prejudice of the nature that Kabuga’s radio station propagated. But the day that the victims receive justice may be coming soon.

On August 14, 2020, Jose Filomeno Dos Santos, son of former Angolan president Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, was sentenced to five to eight years on charges of fraud and peddling influence. Dos Santos was discovered when his $500 million-dollar transfer from the Angolan national bank in 2017 was flagged by British authorities. Dos Santos concealed the transaction, masquerading it as a project to lure foreign investment to the African country. The British alerted the Angolan authorities, resulting inan investigation around money laundering, embezzlement, and other forms of criminal conduct. Dos Santos was removed from his position as governor of the sovereign wealth fund in 2018. This transaction would have been the first of three, totaling to $1.5 billion, had it gone undetected. The transaction would have most likely gone unnoticed, and Dos Santos would have gotten away with his misconduct, were it not for cooperation and communication between financial authorities of both Britain and Angola.

This incident came at the front-end of scandal around the former first family. This particular transaction occurred in 2017, only weeks before the former president, Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, stepped down.  Eduardo Dos Santos held power in the country for nearly 38 years. Throughout that period, family accrued billions of dollars; meanwhile, 50 percent of Angolans live on under $2 a day. For decades, Dos Santos, and his family have been accused of corruption. The “Luanda Leaks,” a slew of documents reported on by the International Consortium of Journalists (ICIJ), seem to validate these beliefs, specifically implicating the former president’s children: his daughter, Isabel Dos Santos, and his son. The Luanda Leaks are 700,000+ emails, charts, contracts, and other documents that detail how Isabel Dos Santos amassed a two-billion-dollar fortune. Dos Santos was able to use favorable contracts and government loans to fund her industries. More than 400 banks and institutions were part of laundering schemes to accrue Dos Santos’ wealth.

Eduardo Dos Santos’ successor, Joao Lourenco, though selected by Dos Santos, launched a campaign on anti-corruption. As discontent with the party grows due to the poverty, this anti-corruption focus is useful in gaining popular support. In response to the accusations of corruption, Isabel Dos Santos claims that the investigation is motivated by a personal issue between families. This conviction in the case of her brother may discredit that defense.

A key challenge for Angola, amongst many oil-rich countries, is the “resource curse.” This moniker is given to countries that profit from resources such as oil, gold, or other assets but suffer economic inequality and a failure to circulate capital. The major reason for that is because any revenue from extracting resources is easily siphoned off to a few individuals rather than being redistributed. Much of this money is often taken out of the country and reinvested into foreign banks or initiatives. A crucial means of combatting these issues is to target corruption and crackdown on offenders. The recent actions taken against Dos Santos by Britain and Angola are an example of how to prevent this corruption.