French criminal court sentences former Liberian rebel commander to 30 years in jail

A French criminal court has handed former Liberian rebel commander Kunti Kamara a 30-year prison sentence for violence against civilians and complicity in crimes against humanity between 1993 and 1994 during Liberia’s first civil war.

The 49-year-old had been sentenced to life in prison during a first trial in Paris in 2022. In the appeals trial that lasted three weeks, the Paris court upheld a guilty verdict against Kamara for “acts of torture and inhuman barbarity” against civilians, including a teacher whose heart he reportedly ate. During the proceedings, the judges heard 22 witnesses, 9 civil parties, and 5 experts, according to Civitas Maxima, a group that coordinates a network of national and international lawyers and investigators who work for the interest of victims of international crimes.

Kamara was a regional commander of the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO), a rebel group that fought the National Patriotic Front of former President Charles Taylor.The allegations against Kamara date back to the early years of the back-to-back conflicts that would ultimately kill 250,000 people in the West African nation between 1989 and 2003. The fighting was marked by mass murders, rape and mutilations, in many cases by child soldiers conscripted by warlords, with atrocities against civilians common.