Bringing war criminals to book

Convicted Dutch millionaire war criminal and arms smuggler Guus Kouwenhoven is sitting in Cape Town, determined to resist extradition to Holland where a 19-year jail terms waits for him. He has been convicted in his absence of crimes relating to Liberia’s decades-long civil war. But as Carmel Rickard has discovered, the SA courts are not the only ones to become involved in the aftermath of this war: thanks to the help of an NGO that coordinates international lawyers and investigators, war criminals from Europe and Africa have been caught, tried and sentenced for technical immigration offences including lying and perjury as they try to escape their just deserts at home. In her A Matter of Justice column on the Legalbrief site, Rickard discusses the latest case: that of a much-feared Liberian warlord, ‘Jungle Jabbah’.