The lawyer for former Gambian interior minister Ousman Sonko has demanded his immediate release from the Federal Criminal Court of Switzerland and payment of CHF 970,000 equivalent to D90,354,126 for the more than nine years he has spent in prison.
Sonko’s lawyer, Philippe Currat made the demand yesterday as he concluded his plea in the on-going appeal hearing in which Sonko is contesting a 20-year jail sentence slammed against him for crimes against humanity committed between 2000 and 2016 under former president Yahya Jammeh.
The former soldier who became a civilian minister, now 57, has been in custody since his arrest in January 2017 where he had fled to when he fell out with Jammeh in the last year of his rule.
Sonko is demanding an acquittal and compensation of CHF 200 for each day spent in detention. This would amount to CHF 673,600. He is also demanding additional compensation of around CHF 287,000.
This sum he said is owed for the 2,260 days spent in allegedly unlawful detention conditions in two regional prisons. Sonko is demanding a further CHF 10,000 for what he claims was 33 hours of food deprivation on a day of questioning in February 2020.
