Obituaries

[pbrower2a]

Good riddance, and ROAST IN HELL!

Alex Tamba Brima (also known as Gullit) (23 November 1971 – 9 June 2016) was a Sierra Leonean military commander. He was one of a group of seventeen soldiers in the Sierra Leone Armed Forces who called themselves Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) that succefully staged a coup that ousted president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah in May 1997. On 19 July 2007 he was convicted and sentenced to 50 years in prison for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Sierra Leone Civil War.

Brima was born in the village of Yaryah, Kono District, Sierra Leone, to parents from the Kono ethnic group. In April 1985, he joined the Sierra Leone Army, where he was promoted to the rank of Staff Sergeant.[1] In 1998, Brima was invited by Johnny Paul Koroma to join the AFRC Supreme Council.[1] In this capacity, Brima was a commander of the AFRC and Revolutionary United Front forces that attacked civilians in the north, east and centre of Sierra Leone in 1998 and in Freetown in January 1999.[1]

Brima was indicted on 7 March 2003, arrested on 10 March 2003 and his trial before the Special Court for Sierra Leone began on 7 March 2005.[1] He was tried with Brima Bazzy Kamara and Santigie Borbor Kanu. Brima was found guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes on 20 June 2007, including counts of murder, rape, forced labour and the use of child soldiers.[1][2] He and his codefendants' convictions were the first convictions for the Special Court for Sierra Leone and were also the first time anyone had been convicted of the international crime of using child soldiers.[2] On 19 July 2007, Brima was sentenced to 50 years' imprisonment;[1][3] he was imprisoned in Rwanda.

Brima's death at the King Faisel Hospital in Kigali, Rwanda, was announced on 9 June 2016.[4] He was 44.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Tamba_Brima

from the BBC in 2007:

First S Leone war crime sentences

Rebel forces raped and mutilated defenceless innocent civilians
Sierra Leone's UN-backed war crimes court has sentenced three leaders of a militia for war crimes including murder, rape and mutilating civilians.
Alex Tamba Brima and Santigie Borbor Kanu were jailed for 50 years each and Brima Kamara for 45 years.
All three were senior members of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council that toppled the government in 1997.
They are the first sentences given by the court, following the end of Sierra Leone's civil war five years ago.
They are also the first people convicted by an international court of recruiting child soldiers.
'Slavery'
The three defendants have the right to appeal.
If they lose, they are likely to serve their prison sentences in Europe rather than Sierra Leone because of security concerns, court officials said.


Some say the UN-backed court has been too slow
The charges linked them to fighters, who raped women, burned villages, conscripted thousands of child soldiers and forced others to work as labourers in diamond mines.
"The three accused persons have committed violations of human rights in which civilians were mutilated, [and] other civilians were killed and burnt in their houses," Judge Julia Sebutinde said, passing sentence in the capital Freetown.
"They also were participants in abducting children for slavery and as child soldiers," she said.
After seizing power, the AFRC joined forces with the rebel Revolutionary United Front, before being driven out of the capital, Freetown by the West African peacekeeping force, Ecomog, in 1998.
The court has indicted a total of 12 people in connection with the war, including the former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who is accused of backing the rebels.
Mr Taylor is on trial in The Hague because of fears that trying him in West Africa could jeopardise the new-found peace of Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Critics say the UN-backed court has been too slow in delivering justice to the people of Sierra Leone.
Three of those indicted, including RUF leader Foday Sankoh, died before their verdicts were delivered.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6906702.stm