By Björn Elberling

The Appeals Chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone today announced its judgment in the case against two former leaders of the Civil Defence Forces, Moinina Fofana and Allieu Kondewa. The two had, in first instance, been found guilty of a number of war crimes, but acquitted of crimes against humanity charges, and had been sentenced to 6 and 8 years’ imprisonment. Justice Thompson had dissented from the judgment, stating that he would have acquitted both under necessity as they were fighting to reinstate the rightful government. The Appeals Chamber overturned some of the convictions for war crimes, but also entered new convictions for crimes against humanity. It increased the sentences to 15 and 20 years, stating inter alia that political motives of Fofana and Kondewa and their fighting for a "just cause" was not a mitigating factor for the purposes of sentencing. There were apparently a number of dissents on various issues. The SCSL has thus concluded two of its four trials; still ongoing are the RUF trial in Freetown, which is in the middle of the Defence case, and the trial against Charles Taylor in The Hague. Court Press Release here, more info once the judgment itself becomes available. UPDATE: The judgment, including the Dissenting Opinions, is now available here. No time for extensive comments at the moment. I’ll only point out that just like in the Trial Chamber, the Sierra Leonean judges (Justices King and Kamanda) were inclined much more favorably towards the defendants than their UN-appointed colleagues, particularly when it came to taking into account the fact that the CDF were fighting to reinstate the government (albeit not as constituting necessity as argued in the first instance by Justice Thompson).