Liberia, Oct. 30 -- Court clears ex-ULIMO commander of crimes against humanity but leaves sentence intact

Monrovia - Former ULIMO commander Alieu Kosiah will serve the full 20 years in prison for atrocities committed in Lofa County during Liberia's civil war, after Switzerland's Federal Supreme Court upheld his war crimes conviction in a ruling made public Friday.

By Rodney Sieh

The decision makes final the first war crimes conviction ever handed down by a Swiss civilian court. It is also the first conviction anywhere of a Liberian for war crimes committed during the country's two civil wars, which ran from 1989 to 2003 and killed an estimated 250,000 people.

Kosiah was found guilty of crimes committed in Lofa between 1993 and 1995, i...