The Swiss Office of the Attorney General and the plaintiffs have filed separate appeals on specific aspects of the ruling, while Ousman Sonko is appealing his conviction on charges of murder, torture and several others which the court characterises as “widespread and systematic attacks” against Gambia's civilian population, and therefore, constitutes crime against humanity.
Ousman Sonko’s lawyer has raised several questions on the prosecution’s case against his client. He has summoned several witnesses to testify in defense, including former jungler (name withheld); former vice president Isatou Njie Saidy, Ousman Sowe, current director general of the former NIA (now SIS) who served as permanent secretary under Sonko as minister for interior, and other witnesses.
Having lost the preliminary motion on jurisdiction and inadmissibility, his next strategy seems to focus on attacking procedural issues of evidence gathering in the indictment of his client. Phillip Currat accused the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland of a total lack of transparency in investigating his client, which is contrary to the established criminal procedure laws of Switzerland.
Lawyer Currat lamented the undocumented investigative steps, acquired evidence without oversight, which, according to him, also violated their procedural rights. He therefore urged the court that such evidence must be excluded and rendered unusable against his client.
He is therefore asking the Appeals Chamber to compel a testimony from the Office of the Attorney General prosecutors and federal police officers involved in the missions. He also asked the court to compel the prosecution to provide a full list of all their trips, participants, meetings, and collected materials, as well as a clarification of all conditions attached to Gambian cooperation.
In short, defense counsel Currat claims that multiple trips from the federal prosecutor’s office between 2018 and 2019 were drafted in the case files some two years later, only after a court ruling reminded their office of its duty to document foreign meetings. The defense claims this retroactive note was an attempt to cover up unlawful actions.
However, the prosecutor in response said the matter that the defense has brought before the court is not the weight of evidence but the manner in which they were acquired. As far as they were not acquired through coercion, or under compulsion that have a great bearing on the case being considered. She asks that the said information gathered have become very relevant in solving a crime, and should be used.
Meanwhile, the name of Ousman Sowe, falls among a list of people reportedly interviewed by Swiss authorities as witnesses, having served as permanent secretary at the Ministry of Interior under Ousman Sonko.
