Are they the good guys or the bad guys? The people of Sierra Leone are beginning to have their doubts about the reputation of Moinina Fofana and Allieu Kondewa, on whom the Tribunal in Freetown is due to pass judgement on Wednesday 28 May.

They are two former fighters of the Civil Defence Force (CDF), one of the hostile parties in the country's long and bloody civil war. Many in Sierra Leone regarded these men as their liberators. Tomorrow the judge is due to rule on their appeal.

Fofana and Kondewa were initially sentenced to six and eight years respectively for atrocities committed during the bloody civil war that ravaged Sierra Leone from 1991 to 2001. The Tribunal's prosecutor believed the punishment was not harsh enough and decided to appeal the sentence.

Serious doubts
Dutch lawyer Michiel Pestman defended Moinina Fofana at his first trial. He has serious doubts about how the Sierra Leone Tribunal operates and is highly critical of the charges brought against his client. He regards the crimes of which Fofana is accused as far less serious than those of the other suspects who appeared before the tribunal.

These others were rebels from two militias - the RUF and the AFRC - that were supported by Charles Taylor, then president of neighbouring Liberia. Michiel Pestman explains his position:  "There is a lot of criticism of the tribunal's policy on prosecution. They picked three suspects from each group that played a role in the conflict. And I have the strong impression that their main reason for charging three members of the Civil Defence Force was so that they could not be accused of bias at a later stage. But the crimes of which my clients stand accused bear no comparison to the crimes of the other suspects. You really cannot put them in the same category."

War crimes
In the view of a large section of the population, the fighters of the CDF led by Sam Hinga Norman defended the country against the rebels backed by Charles Taylor. Yet these "good guys" have also been charged with war crimes. They were found guilty of torturing the supporters of enemy militias during the civil war.

But now, the people of Sierra Leone think differently about the two suspects, says Patrick Fotoma of the Tribunal's Outreach Programme, a department that works to explain the Tribunal's work to the man on the street: Patrick Fotoma says:

"I want to say that the perception has shifted from the overwhelming support that nothing should have happened to the CDF. I think we have made a lot of progress. Because, when we started doing Outreach, many people asked us, 'why are you wasting money on the special court when this money could have been used building roads and helping amputees and helping displaced people and building houses that were burned down?"

He continues:

"Today these are not the questions they are asking us. They are asking us 'why are you not indicting more people, because a lot of atrocities went on in this country?' To me this is a shift in people's perception about the court. Now they realise that the court has a role in building peace and in starting development. Without peace and without the rule of law, there can be no development so I see a shift in perception about the work of the special court and its mandate."

The Dutch registrar at the Sierra Leone Tribunal, Herman van Hebel, sees the forthcoming appeal sentence in the case against the two CDF fighters as an important symbolic ruling,he explains:

"The important thing about this sentence is that whichever side of the war you were on at a certain point it has to be made clear that some acts are against the law. It is unacceptable that people, who fought on the side of good, according to some, should be less liable to punishment than others. A rape is every bit as illegal if it is committed in the name of a so-called "just cause". And I think that, in this respect, the Tribunal has focused on all parties and in particular on the people who played the greatest role within these parties."

Tomorrow, the Sierra Leone Tribunal will deliver its verdict on the two CDF suspects. After this, the only remaining case to be heard in Freetown is that of the former fighters of the RUF. For security reasons, the trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor is being held in The Hague.

* RNW translation (dd)