OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 1.30pm.
THE UN Security Council and ministers of six West African states have discussed putting Sierra Leonean rebel leader Foday Sankoh on trial, but they disagree about the scope of the charges.
Speaking to journalists, the ministers recalled that Sankoh was amnestied under a peace agreement signed last year for atrocities committed by his Revolutionary United Front during the eight-year civil war.
The RUF was notorious for murdering, raping and mutilating thousands of civilians during the war, and for abducting thousands of children who were forced to fight in its ranks or act as porters or sex slaves.
Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations, Jeremy Greenstock, said “there is a limit to the effect of the amnesty, both in terms of the spread of crimes we are considering, and in terms of the date of those crimes.”
He recalled that UN officials made a disclaimer to the amnesty when they witnessed the peace accord, signed in Lome, the capital of Togo, on July 7.
“The Security Council will be looking very hard at a form of tribunal for Foday Sankoh that will be a combination of Sierra Leone law and judicial process and an international input,” Greenstock said.
The UN special representative who made the disclaimer had said that the amnesty did not apply to crimes against humanity, war crimes or gross violations of humanitarian law, Greenstock said.