UNITED NATIONS, June 21 (AFP)
The UN Security Council and ministers of six West African states discussed putting Sierra Leonean rebel leader Foday Sankoh on trial on Wednesday, but disagreed about the scope of the charges.
Speaking to reporters, the ministers recalled that Sankoh was amnestied under a peace agreement signed last year for atrocities committed by his Revolutionary United Front (RUF) during the eight-year civil war.
The RUF was notorious for murdering, raping and mutilating thousands of civilians during the war, and for abducting thousands of children who were forced to fight in its ranks or act as porters or sex slaves.
Britain's ambassador to the United Nations, Jeremy Greenstock, said "there is a limit to the effect of the amnesty, both in terms of the spread of crimes we are considering, and in terms of the date of those crimes."
He recalled that UN officials made a disclaimer to the amnesty when they witnessed the peace accord, signed in Lome, the capital of Togo, on July 7.
"The Security Council will be looking very hard at a form of tribunal for Foday Sankoh that will be a combination of Sierra Leone law and judicial process and an international input," Greenstock said.
International process was "not necessarily committed by the amnesty in the Lome agreement," he said.
The UN special representative who made the disclaimer had said that the amnesty did not apply to crimes against humanity, war crimes or gross violations of humanitarian law, Greenstock said.
Earlier, council members conferred with a delegation of ministers from Mali, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Togo representing the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
The delegation was led by the foreign minister of Mali, Modibo Sidibe.
Afterwards the two sides issued a joint statement saying that "with the help of appropriate inquiries, those identified as responsible should be brought to justice,"
The statement was read by the council president for June, French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte.
The executive secretary of ECOWAS, Lansana Kouyate, told reporters that an ECOWAS team was already investigating violations of the Lome accord with a view to prosecuting people for crimes committed after July 7, 1999.
"We are not opposed at all to any judicial process which will bring to court those who have been responsible for violations of the Lome peace accord," he said.
"We are in total agreement both with the government of Sierra Leone and the Security Council," he added.
Greenstock said ECOWAS had not yet decided what kind of trial should be held, but said it was clear that they wanted Sankoh brought to justice.
"They do not want to spirited him away somewhere and have a compromise over it," he said.
"They want him tried if the charges are as they look at the moment," he said.