No Sankoh trial here, says president

President Jerry Rawlings said on Tuesday he would not allow the trial of Sierra Leonean rebel leader Foday Sankoh to be held in Ghana, news reports said. Sankoh could be tried in other countries, PANA reported him as saying on receiving UN Secretrary-General Kofi Annan. Rawlings’ statement put to rest media reports that Sankoh might be brought to Ghana, PANA added. There is considerable international and national agreement to try Sankoh for war crimes and violation of the Lome peace accord of July 1999. Late in July this year, the Sierra Leonean government welcomed a UN Security Council draft resolution to set up an international tribunal for people accused of committing crimes against humanity. Under Sankoh’s leadership, his RUF rebels conducted a policy of limb amputations, rape, looting and arson mostly against the civilian population. “We want those who committed these heinous crimes to be brought to justice,” Septimus Kaikai, the Sierra Leonean presidential spokesman, had told IRIN.