Ousman Sonko, a former Gambian Interior Minister has been sentenced to serve a 20-year jail term by the Swiss court in Bellingzona on Wednesday, 15th May 2024.
Ousman Sonko was accused of taking part in numerous acts of torture, kidnapping, sexual violence and killings perpetrated between 2000 and 2016 in The Gambia.
Sonko has served as Interior minister in The Gambia under ex-president Yahya Jammeh‘s government from 2006 to 2016 when he was fired almost three months before Presidential election. He then fled into exile and sought asylum in Switzerland. He was arrested in Bern on 26 January 2017. He has spent more than six years of detention in Swiss jail during the investigation into his case by the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) who filed an indictment before the Federal Criminal Court.
Sonko will be extradited to The Gambia after serving his jail term.
