[7][8] In 2018, he was arrested in France—under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity—and charged in a French court for acts of barbarity including torture, cannibalism, forced labour and complicity in crimes against humanity during that Liberian war, and put on trial starting October 10, 2022, in a Paris court.
[7][4][8][2][9] In November 2022, Kunti Kamara was found guilty of complicity in crimes against humanity, and acts of barbarity, during 1993 and 1994, and sentenced to life imprisonment by the Paris court in France.
[3][7] In 1993–1994, while not yet 20 years old, Kamara allegedly commanded a ULIMO unit in the northwestern Liberian region of Lofa County where he was allegedly complicit "in massive and systematic torture [along with] inhumane acts"[7][2][6][10] – including allowing and abetting, with his authority, rapes and sexual torture, and also compelling people into forced labor in inhumane conditions (including keeping women as sex slaves[3][9]).
Kamara was a commander in ULIMO-K.[6] The war was followed shortly by the Second Liberian Civil War (1999–2003), ended by the 2003 flight of Liberian President Charles Taylor to Nigeria, and the 2003 Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) enforced by the United Nations Mission in Liberia and United States Marines.
[23] Civitas Maxima, a swiss NGO which documents international crimes and provides the victims with juridic support in their quest for justice,[24] alerted French authorities about Kamara's case in 2018.
[25] He was released due to a procedural error, but put under investigation, and rearrested in 2020 while reportedly attempting to leave the country.
Karmara's defense lawyer denounced the scheme as "legal acrobatics," though the prosecutor insisted it was reality.
[2] The four-week trial was to include testimony of more than 36 witnesses and experts, some brought from Liberia by the French prosecutors.
[3] Among the witnesses at the trial were three men and a woman reportedly in Lofa County when the crimes allegedly took place.
[2][7][9][10] Also testifying was former ULIMO senior officer Alieu Kosiah, who had been convicted in June 2021 of similar Liberian war crimes in a Swiss court,[1][16] largely due to testimony by Kamara.
[16] While testifying, Kosiah protested the French court's relevance, questioning a European court's capacity to judge the events in Liberia, complaining that the prosecution does not understand those events, adding "I think this case is too complicated to be judged by white people.
The crimes for which Kamara were convicted included torture; cannibalism (eating the heart of a teacher), executing a sick woman for witchcraft; rape and sexual slavery, of particularly vulnerable people, committed by his subordinates; not preventing his soldiers from raping two teenage girls repeatedly; and forced labour under inhumane conditions.
"[2][9][10][31] Human rights lawyer Alain Werner, director of the civic group Civitas Maxima (which had been a party to the prosecution[14]), said the trial indicated that there is legal recourse possible for victims of atrocities – even if committed in conflicts long-forgotten, noting the relevance of the case to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine at the time of the trial.