International justice is slowly reaching the doorsteps of the people of Sierra Leone as ICC (International Criminal Court) prosecutor jets into Sierra Leone. Sleepless nights have been spent by some officials owing to fear of indictment.
Counsel Karim Kahn met with Vice President, Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh, but their discussion remained a closely guarded secret.
He also visited law students at Sierra Leone Law School lecturing them on the 1998 Rome Statute to which Sierra Leone is a signatory.
It established the ICC, one of the six organs of the UN.
The court, according to the statute, is tasked with the responsibility of bringing to justice those who commit war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
Rcently, two Dutch judges visited Sierra Leone and held discussions with Chief Justice, Browne Marke, and their exact mission also remained unclear. Despite facts to the contrary, many say the judges’ trip to Sierra Leone is a fact-finding one especially coming from a country that hosts the world’s highest court.
The ICC is the world’s highest judicial institution, but it respects sovereignty of states. It comes in to prosecute only where a state has failed to bring perpetrators of atrocious crimes to justice.
It was the case with Sierra Leone’s civil war which ended in 2002. A Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) was set up to bring to justice those who bore the greatest responsibility for the crimes committed during the war. Heads of various fighting factions who took part in the war were humbled at SCSL.
The likes of Hinga Norman, Allieu Konedwai, Moinina Fofanah who led the Civil Defence Force of which the Kamajor fighters was a major unit were brought to court.
Mr Norman was CDF National Coordinator, Kondewai was Chief Priest while Fofanah was Director of war, and such posts placed them in a class of their own. The trio were on the government side as they fought to restore democratic order in Sierra Leone.
Heads of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), Johnny Paul Koroma, Morrison Kallon and others were also brought to court although Koroma evaded Justice. AFRC was a military organisation that ruled Sierra Leone for nine months after toppling President Ahmed Tejan Kabba of SLPP.
Top commanders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUFP), the main architect of the war, were also roped in. RUFP leader, Foday Saybana Sankoh and others were also arraigned.
The prosecutor’s visit sparked waves of debates among the public with others saying it is a familiarisation tour. For others, it is an ordinary visit although such prosecutors hardly visit a country for nothing.
However, argument about future investigations into alleged killings seems to have gained weight especially when the prosecutor recently met with the Sierra Leonean President during a UN summit enlisting his cooperation and support.
Kahn who seems passionate about bringing justice to Sierra Leone said the lives of the people of the Global South, Latin America and Africa mattered the same way as the lives of people anywhere in the world, and the prosecutions could not be confined at the Hague, the Dutch city that hosts the ICC.
“The people of Freetown, Lungi and other parts upcountry in Sierra Leone wanted to see justice,” he said adding that Sierra Leone was in a better position to support the court after it was elected as one of the non-permanent members of the Security Council, UN’S highest organ.
Sierra Leone was among five countries that took up seats in the UN’s most important organ, and would assist in the maintenance of international justice. The prosecutor’s meeting with the President came late last year after Sierra Leoneans in the diaspora staged a protest in the UK, US and Holland about killings and human rights abuses that took place in Sierra Leone between 2018 and 2023.
The protest started in the UK at Downing Street, the official home of the former British Minister, and later reached the UN headquarters in New York and the last was ICC headquarters where they tendered videos about gross human rights violations in Sierra Leone.
The Sierra Leonean protesters drew the court’s attention to alleged murders in Makeni in July, 2020 following a row that erupted from the forceful relocation of 6.5kva thermal plant from Makeni city to Freetown.
Six people, according to government sources, were fatally injured, but unofficial sources suggested a higher figure. A member of parliament representing one of the constituencies in Bombali district put the casualty figure at 20.
Lunsar community in PortLoko district also saw similar spates of killings when the youth protested against local authorities who they accused of conniving with government to shut down SL Mining, which had gone into a 25-year lease agreement with then government of Sierra Leone.
Mining in Lunsar town was one of the main sources of income for the locals and the closure badly affected their livelihoods, and taking to the streets to invite government’s attention to their plight was the only option.
The spate of alleged killings also moved to the fishing town of Tombo where fishermen also protested against a ban on fishing. The ban, local authorities said, was to control the spread of Corona Virus (Covid-19) which broke out in November, 2019 in China and wreaked havoc here in Sierra Leone.
The control measure, according to the fishermen, was tough, and called on government to reverse the ban. Fisheries Ministry however denied imposing the fishing ban shifting the blame to the local authorities and stakeholders.
Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown also saw bloodshed in August 10, 2022 when the people took to the streets in protest to a cost-of-living crisis. About 31 people were alleged to have been murdered including six police officers, but no criminal prosecutions took place.
Government however set up a Special Investigation Committee to look into alleged killings and make recommendations to government. Sacked Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Lahai Lawrence Leema turned down an invitation to help the probe.
Leema was said to have played significant role in the extra-judicial killings carried out during and after the protest. His name also came up after an alleged massacre of inmates at the country’s main correctional facility in an attempt to foil a jail break.
31 inmates including a prison officer were allegedly murdered according to a prison report.
The attempted jail break sources said emanated from a protest owing to a one-month ban on trial issued by former Chief Justice, Desmond Babatunde Edwards.
The ban, according to judicial sources, came after an inmate was diagnosed with Covid-19, and the move was to cut off the transmission chain. An audio allegedly circulated by erstwhile SLPP Women’s Leader showed that the ex-minister was at the scene of the killings.
About six people were also allegedly gunned down including Alfred Kallon, a disabled top-up seller at Moyiba community in Eastern Freetown during a post-election protest between the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party and the main opposition, All People’s Congress.
The protest which took place in September, last year was a call on the international community to listen to voters’ voices. They demanded a publication of the voters’ register for transparency.
The people also demanded the publication of the results by polling stations and districts to ascertain the real winner. The demand is yet to be responded to by the election authorities, and a terror campaign still hangs on the air.
It all started in early 2018 in Rosengbe, a small village in Tonkolili district in Northern Sierra Leone where a raid left one person dead and several others injured. The Tonkolili incident trigerred waves of killings that may constitute objects of investigation.