Commentary
By Alfred Munda SamForay
Sentencing in the CDF Accused trial has once again been postponed to next Tuesday October 9, 2007. The on-again, off-again sentencing was originally scheduled for Monday, September 24, then postponed to today, Monday October 1 according to the court’s own calendar. Family and supporters of Second Accused, Moinina Fofana, and Third Accused, Dr. Alieu Musa Kondewa, have now been informed that the sentencing has again been postponed another week. No reason has so far been given for the postponement.
Mr. Fofana and Dr. Kondewa were both found guilty August 2, 2007 on four counts each of violations of protocols of war under Article III Common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols collectively known as war crimes. Additionally, Dr. Kondewa was found guilty on one count of international humanitarian laws for recruitment and enlistment of child soldiers. Neither of the CDF Accused was found guilty of the most serious offence of Crimes Against Humanity. The lone Sierra Leonean jurist on the Trial Chamber, Professor Roslo Bankole Thompson, rejected the majority verdict with a strongly worded dissenting opinion in favour of a not-guilty verdict for the CDF Accused. His two foreign colleagues, Canadian jurist, Pierre Boutet, and Cameroonian, Benjamin Mutanga Itoe, ruled against the CDF.
The prosecutor on September 24 asked the court for a thirty-year prison sentence for each of the CDF leaders. Counsels for Dr. Kondewa and Mr. Fofana, Charles Francis Margai and Michael Pestman, respectively, had asked the court for lighter sentences including four years for Fofana and three years for Kondewa. The three-judge Trial Chamber was to have ruled on those motions today.
Despite all the predictions and assurances by Sierra Leone government and some diplomatic officials, it is quite evident based on the guilty verdict for the remaining CDF Accused that had he lived to see the final verdict, former CDF National Coordinator, Chief Sam Hinga Norman, would also have been found guilty of war crimes and possibly other offenses. Chief Norman and the government-sponsored Sierra Leone Civil Defence Forces (CDF) twice took up arms alongside the West African defense force, ECOMOG, to restore the now defeated and disgraced SLPP government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, who later turned Norman and the CDF over for prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Members of Kabbah’s government, possibly including Kabbah himself, were over the weekend ordered by newly elected President, Ernest Bai Koroma, not to give any thoughts about leaving the country without prior clearance by the Inspector General of Police. Perhaps it is a matter of poetic justice that Tejan Kabbah and his ministers are now subject to restricted movement similar to, though not as constrained, as the people whom they betrayed to foreigners.
Meanwhile, the Hinga Norman family through its representative, Rev. Alfred SamForay, has submitted a formal request to the court for the expeditious return of all personal effects of the Late Chief that are believed to be in the custody of the court or detention officials. These include the Command Staff of the Kamajors taken by the court during the trial supposedly for evidentiary purposes. The family is also seeking the return by any person or persons of all such personal and official objects that may be of historical significance to be preserved for posterity. All such items are to be returned to the family’s sole designated custodian, Mr. Mohamed Lansana Jawara, of New England, Freetown.
Alfred Munda SamForay
CDF Defence Fund.
Photo: Alfred Munda SamForay.
Editor’s Note: We have been informed by the Special Court that the delay or postponement is to give the defense sufficient time to present their final arguments.
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