Kosiah has been in detention since November

There are reliable reports that Switzerland’s attorney general has extended, until September, the detention of Alieu Kosiah, a Liberian held on war crimes, because criminal proceedings against him are still continuing.

Nathalie Guth of the attorney general’s office however told Nordic Africa News in a recent email that “We can confirm, at this stage, that the criminal proceedings are still ongoing with the accused in preventive detention.”

This is the  second time that Kosiah’s custody has been extended. The first was in February. He was arrested in November last year after seven Liberians made a criminal complaint against him, alleging that he committed war crimes when he served as a commander for a  Liberian warring faction during the country’s civil war.

The complainants, some of whom are represented by Alain Werner, a Swiss lawyer and  director of Cavitas Maxima, said Kosiah carried out the crimes between 1993 and 1995 in Lofa County in northern Liberia.