Liberian Civil War Commander Arrested in Switzerland

Swiss authorities have arrested Alieu Kosiah, a top rebel commander in the first of Liberia's back-to-back civil wars, for presumed war crimes.

Kosiah, a former commander in the now defunct United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy group or ULIMO, is suspected of ordering civilian massacres between 1993 and 1995.

He is accused of "ordering his troops to kill civilians, ordering rape and acts aimed at terrorizing the local population and reducing them to slavery," in Liberia's northern Lofa County, the Swiss attorney general's office said.

It said it had last August ordered a criminal investigation into a Liberian national living in Switzerland for suspected war crimes, adding that the person was currently in detention.

The ULIMO group was set up to fight a rebel unit headed by warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor, who is currently serving a 50-year jail sentence for aiding and abetting rebels who committed atrocities in neighboring diamond-rich Sierra Leone.

Seven victims had filed a suit against Kosiah in Switzerland. The defense association Civitas Maxima said he was arrested in Bern in November and has been placed in detention for at least three months.

Liberia, Africa's oldest republic formed by freed American slaves, was devastated by the two civil wars which killed around 25,000 people between 1989 and 2003.