Sesay Replies That the Trial Chamber Itself Found That the Bunumbu Training Camp Was Not Opened During the Junta Period.1537
IT-05-88-A 15008 Sesay replies that the Trial Chamber itself found that the Bunumbu training camp was not opened during the Junta period.1537 (c) Discussion 619. Sesay’s first challenge to his participation in the JCE in Kenema District concerns the Trial Chamber’s finding that, “on Sesay’s orders, from 1997 onwards, captured civilians were taken to Bunumbu for military training.”1538 The Trial Chamber found that the Bunumbu training camp was established in 19981539 and that the AFRC/RUF Junta was ousted from power by the ECOMOG intervention on 14 February 1998.1540 It did not say whether the Bunumbu training camp was established before or after 14 February 1998, but the testimony of TF1-362, relied on by the Trial Chamber for the impugned finding and invoked by Sesay and the Prosecution on appeal, suggests that the camp was established shortly after the ECOMOG intervention.1541 Sesay thus appears to be correct that the Bunumbu training camp did not open until after the Junta period. 620. However, it does not follow that his orders in question did not constitute a participation in the JCE, because the JCE continued beyond the Junta period, until late April 1998.1542 Sesay does not address the question of whether he issued any orders between the opening of the Bunumbu training camp sometime in February 1998 and late April 1998. The extent that these orders contributed to the crimes in Kenema District, which occurred between 25 May 1997 and 19 February 1998,1543 would have been limited to the period of temporal overlap, but this fact alone does not render unreasonable the Trial Chamber’s conclusion that Sesay lent a significant contribution to those crimes, particularly in light of his other forms of participation in the JCE in Kenema.
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