(AP Photo\/Andres Leighton, File)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe former president remains chair of the National Democratic Party and some fear unrest in parts of Suriname. Die-hard supporters call him “boss” and have maintained they will not accept a conviction. Bouterse has urged calm several times. Tight security measures were in place in part of the capital of Paramaribo.<\/p>\n
Bouterse still has the option of requesting a presidential pardon, but according to Essed, the legislation in Suriname is unclear on the issue. “If a request for clemency is made, it is not expected that the Court will advise on granting it.”<\/p>\n
Henk Kamperveen, the son of Andre Kamperveen, one of the 15 people killed, said it took a long time, but the legal process against Bouterse has finally come to an end.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re not going to celebrate,” he added, saying it is not a victory for the relatives, but for the rule of law in Suriname.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors had demanded the immediate imprisonment of Bouterse, but the judge did not back the request. “How and when (Bouterse\u2019s imprisonment) will happen is up to the prosecution,” said Essed.<\/p>\n
Bouterse led a bloodless coup to become dictator from 1980 to 1987 and was democratically elected president from 2010 to 2020.<\/p>\n
He and two dozen others were accused of rounding up well-known people including lawyers, journalists and a university professor and executing them in 1982 in a colonial fortress in Paramaribo.<\/p>\n
The former dictator has accepted “political responsibility” but insists he was not present for the killings known as the “December murders.”<\/p>\n
The criminal trial began in 2007, a quarter-century after the events it relates to. A total of 25 suspects were initially accused in the killings. A dozen have been acquitted, six have died and five have been sentenced. Two have been convicted but are believed to have fled Suriname.<\/p>\n
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP<\/strong><\/p>\nBouterse unsuccessfully tried to push through an amnesty law after being elected in 2010. Then in 2016, he ordered Suriname\u2019s attorney general to halt legal proceedings for alleged national security reasons. A court rejected that.<\/p>\n
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[ad_1] Former Surinamese dictator Desi Bouterse, 78, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for the 1982 murders of 15 political opponents. The notorious “December murders” were prosecuted over the course of a 16-year criminal case. “We have received a gem of a verdict,” Hugo Essed, a lawyer for the victims\u2019 relatives, said of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16449"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}