So, when the lawyers take turn this week to argue the innocence or guilt of one of Yahya Jammeh's most loyal soldiers, they are doing so from the point of the intricacies of law, and for the service to their clients; not from the point of the hundreds, and over thousands of the victims of Yahya Jammeh. Some of these victims, by extension, also happen to include those of Ousman Sonko. About a dozen of them appeared before the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona in 2024, as witnesses and plaintiffs. This time, five of them are present in this appeal process in Bellinzona.
On Monday, March 29th, the preliminary motion filed by the Defence Counsel, Phillip Currat took most of the day's sessions as he delivered a non-summarised, hours-long arguments on matters of procedure, technicality and jurisdiction before the panel of judges, to the charging of over half-a dozen or so law students who traveled from hundreds of kilometers to witness and learn from this important case of international human rights law and crimes against humanity.
Not just them, the presiding judge at some point had attempted to ask for a summary of the lengthy motion of the defense lawyer, to be summarised to save time. But Currat, known for his high philosophical and intellectual acumen, insisted on delivering every word in his motion to the judges, and for history of legal jurisprudence.
Sonko's lawyer, probably infuriated by counter appeals that the Office of the Attorney General brought in a form of amendment to the charges Sonko initially faced in the May 2024 trial, lawyers for the respective plaintiffs argued that the lower court chamber should never have considered those appeals and should only have ruled that they were inadmissible.
Several plaintiffs - Binta JAMBA (widow of Almamo Manneh), Ramzia DIAB (former NAM), Bunja DARBOE (army officer), Demba DEM (former ANM), Madi CEESAY (journalist, now NAM), Musa SAYDIKHAN (journmalist), Fatou CAMARA (opposition activist), Fatoumata JAWARA (NAM), Nogoi NJIE (former opposition activist now deceased and represented by her family), and Fatoumata SANDENG DARBOE (daughter of killed opposition activist Solo Sandeng) - filed counter appeals in response to Ousman Sonko's appeal, which his lawyer said, was the first to be filed (2 June 2025). Rather than a response, he was slapped with multiple counter appeals - to which he argues, has procedural flaws, jurisdictional incompetence and must therefore be rejected by the appeals court.
"At the present time," Currat argues, "the Appeals Chamber has not yet reached a decision, and Ousman SONKO therefore considers it necessary to reiterate his arguments for dismissing the appeals of the other parties on the grounds already set out," he said on behalf of his client.
More dramatic was his client's statement to the appeal court about his rights and entitlements under the Swiss penitentiary laws. He still laments bad food in prison, access to basic hygiene products like tooth paste, even when the appeal was about a different motion all together. Anyway, the court heard him and moved on with the case. In an aside with this reporter, some of the plaintiffs expressed awe at his attitude as "a fake sense of entitlement", as if he is still a serving minister and not a prisoner serving a sentence.
