Amnesty International Report 1994 - Sierra Leone

More than 300 political detainees, including prisoners of conscience, who had been held without charge or trial were released, but more than 150 remained in detention at the end of the year. Conditions in prisons remained extremely harsh; deaths in custody from disease and malnutrition were common. People suspected of supporting rebel forces were tortured and ill-treated and captured rebels were extrajudicially executed by soldiers. Three people were sentenced to death for murder, but there were no executions. Armed opposition forces also committed serious human rights abuses. On 29 April, the first anniversary of the coup which brought the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) headed by Captain Valentine Strasser to power, the government announced the release from detention of former government ministers. It also announced amendments to legislation introduced in 1992, including the Treason and Other Offences (Special Military Tribunal) Decree, No. 12 of 1992, which established a special military court to try people involved in attempts to overthrow the government (see Amnesty International Report 1993). Trials before the tribunal would now be held in public and chaired by a High Court judge and those convicted would have a right of appeal to the Court of Appeal. The government also promised a return to a multi-party political system within three years and a National Advisory Council was established to draft a new constitution and prepare a transition to civilian rule. Armed conflict continued in the south and east between government forces and the armed opposition Revolutionary United Front (RUF). It had begun in 1991 when the RUF invaded from neighbouring Liberia and continued after the NPRC took power in 1992. During the year, government forces recaptured most of the areas previously held by rebels. Captain Strasser announced a unilateral month-long cease-fire during December and offered an amnesty to rebel forces who surrended, but rebel attacks continued. Both sides committed gross human rights abuses, including torture and killings of captured opponents. From June onwards hundreds of boys aged under 15 who had been enlisted into the Sierra Leone army were demobilized. Several hundred people were being detained without charge or trial at the beginning of the year, mostly at the Central Prison, Pademba Road, in Freetown, the capital. They included former government ministers and officials arrested at the time of or immediately after the April 1992 coup and others arrested subsequently as suspected opponents of the NPRC. Some were prisoners of conscience. They were held under emergency legislation introduced in May 1992 which allowed indefinite administrative detention without charge or trial and from which there was no recourse to the courts. In April, 24 former politicians were released from prison but, like other detainees released in late 1992, they were placed under house arrest and remained so throughout the year. Commissions of inquiry which were established to investigate corruption by former government ministers completed their investigations but the government brought no charges against them. Those held also included eight former prison officers who had been arrested in December 1992 for alleged involvement in a coup attempt (see Amnesty International Report 1993). They were held without charge or trial at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) headquarters in Freetown until they were released in November. Two soldiers, Lieutenant M.A. Jalloh and Corporal S.S. Koroma, and a student, Sahid Mohamed Sesay, also accused of involvement in the coup attempt, were believed to be still held at Pademba Road Prison at the end of the year. Following international condemnation of the executions in December 1992 of 26 others accused of involvement in alleged coup attempts, the government said that it would make public the transcript of their trial before a Special Military Tribunal. It failed, however, to do this. In January, Chernor Ojuku Sesay, editor of The Pool newspaper, was held without charge for four days apparently because of an article criticizing the executions. He was beaten and kicked by a senior member of the NPRC while detained. Seven people were arrested in early March on suspicion of plotting with former President Joseph Saidu Momoh to overthrow the government. They were held at CID headquarters in Freetown until 1 April when all but Ernest Allen, former Acting Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Defence, were released. Ernest Allen was transferred to Pademba Road Prison and held without charge until 9 July when he and 85 other political detainees were released from the prison. Also released were Adeline Koroma, a former government information officer, and K. Roy Stevens, a journalist, both held since May 1992, and Harry T.T. Williams, a former government minister, arrested in October 1992 who, like those released in April, was kept under house arrest. In mid-October, 10 people were arrested after an independent newspaper, The New Breed, referred to allegations of government corruption previously reported by a foreign newspaper. Dr Julius Spencer, a university lecturer and the newspaper's director, Donald John, a journalist, and three others were charged with seditious publication and libel. They were released on bail in late October and had not been tried by the end of the year. Two other journalists were detained briefly in November. Paul Kamara and Sallieu Kamara, prominent members of the National League for Human Rights and Democracy and editor and deputy editor respectively of For di People newspaper, which had not appeared since stringent rules regulating the press were introduced by the NPRC in January, were arrested on 27 November. They were held for questioning for two days at CID headquarters in Freetown but were not charged. Four British nationals of Vietnamese and Chinese origin were arrested in October in Freetown on suspicion of involvement in a plot against the government. They were charged with treason on 23 December but a preliminary investigation of their case before a magistrate's court was adjourned. A fifth person arrested shortly after the others was released uncharged on 30 December. More than 150 detainees remained in Pademba Road Prison after the releases in July and arrests continued throughout the year. Most were held in connection with the armed conflict between government and rebel forces. About 20 had been held since 1991, when they were captured following the RUF invasion; others were arrested after the NPRC came to power. Large groups of civilians were detained, apparently indiscriminately, by soldiers as they retook areas previously held by rebels. For example, 27 farmers were arrested in January in Njaiama-NIMIKoro, Kono District, Eastern Province, when, at the request of the military, they returned to their homes with their families after fighting had ceased. Although they were first held for questioning in military barracks, no proper investigation into their alleged involvement in rebel activities appeared to have taken place. None had been captured during fighting and allegations that they might have supported or collaborated with rebel forces were unsubstantiated. Among those held at Pademba Road Prison accused of involvement in rebel activities were 16 boys under the age of 18, including one 14-year-old, Alhaji Kallon. He was among 154 political detainees freed from Pademba Road Prison on 12 November. A further 35 were released on 18 November. However, more than 150 political detainees remained held without charge or trial at the end of the year. Torture and ill-treatment of suspected rebels and their supporters by soldiers in the war zone were common. Captives often had their arms bound tightly behind their backs, sometimes resulting in paralysis of the hands and arms. Several detainees in Pademba Road Prison had serious injuries to their arms; others had scars from bayonet wounds inflicted by the military forces who had initially detained them. There were also reports of torture and ill-treatment by security forces in areas of the country not affected by armed conflict. For example, in late August a pregnant woman, Ramatu Kanu, was reported to have died at a village in Tonkolili District, Northern Province, after being beaten by two soldiers who were searching for her husband. He too was later beaten by the soldiers. Police subsequently investigated the incident but it was not known whether those responsible were prosecuted. Conditions in prisons throughout the country were extremely harsh. In March more than 70 prisoners who had been arrested as vagrants in Freetown in December 1992 died from starvation and neglect in Magburaka Central Prison, Mafanta, Tonkolili District. Thirty-three people died in early May after 62 people arrested in connection with a murder were locked in a small police cell in Kenema, Eastern Province. Official inquiries into both incidents were announced and several police officers in Kenema were subsequently suspended. However, the conclusions of the inquiries had not been made public by the end of the year. Although the incidence of prisoners' deaths at Pademba Road Prison was significantly lower than in previous years, deaths from disease and malnutrition still occurred. In October the government announced that major improvements to the country's prisons were to be undertaken. At least three people were sentenced to death for criminal offences. It appeared that soldiers may also have been sentenced to death by military courts, but no details were available. In April a High Court in Freetown sentenced three men to death for murder. No executions of condemned prisoners were carried out. In Eastern and Southern Provinces, soldiers extrajudicially executed those captured in the conflict between government and rebel forces. Rebels captured on the battlefield were summarily killed; others were executed publicly, often by beheading, without any form of trial. For example, in January soldiers who had retaken Koidu in Kono District, Eastern Province, admitted to journalists that captured rebels were summarily executed. Three rebels captured in Koidu, one bleeding heavily from a gunshot wound, were bound and beaten. Two died as a result; the other was stabbed to death. In April a man and a woman captured while laying mines were reported to have been publicly mutilated and executed by soldiers in Daru, Kailahun District, Eastern Province. Rebel forces also committed human rights abuses, including torture and deliberate and arbitrary killings of unarmed civilians. In August RUF forces were reported to have killed 21 people in Kailahun District. Sixteen members of the RUF and five civilians were reportedly executed by firing-squad after they were accused of plotting to overthrow the leader of the ruf, Foday Sankoh. Eight villagers, four men and four women, were reported to have been bound and shot by rebel forces in late October during a raid on the village of Ngieya, near the Liberian border, and in late December rebel forces were reported to have shot some 20 villagers when they attacked two villages in Pujehun District, Southern Province. Amnesty International representatives visited Sierra Leone in early May. They visited parts of the country affected by armed conflict and also Pademba Road Prison where they saw 264 political detainees. In June Amnesty International published a report, Sierra Leone: Political detainees at the Central Prison, Pademba Road, Freetown, and called for a review of the cases of all political detainees held without charge or trial. When 86 detainees were released in July following a review of their cases by police and military authorities, the government said that rebels or those who collaborated with them would remain in detention while the armed conflict continued. Amnesty International welcomed the releases, but urged the government to review the cases of all political detainees in order to establish the grounds for their detention and to release those against whom no evidence of involvement in rebel activities had been found. In August Amnesty International drew attention to the cases of detainees under the age of 18 in its report, Sierra Leone: Prisoners of war? Children detained in barracks and prison. The government subsequently admitted that boys under 18 were held, but claimed that there were only eight. Amnesty International welcomed further releases of political detainees in November, but called again for a review of remaining cases. It also called for the early trial or release of those detained in connection with alleged coup plots in December 1992 and October 1993. Amnesty International urged the government to take steps to prevent torture and extrajudicial executions and to ensure that all troops had clear orders not to kill prisoners. It also publicly condemned the deliberate and arbitrary killing of 21 people by the RUF in August, and called on the RUF to observe basic international humanitarian standards.