PARAMARIBO, Suriname, The Court of Justice will meet on Thursday to hear the challenge filed by the lawyer representing former president Desi Bouterse who has been sentenced to 20 years in jail for his involvement in the December 1982 murders of 15 political opponents of his then military government.
Attorney Irvin Kanhai, who is also representing Iwan Dijksteel, Stephanus Dendoe, Benny Brondenstein, and Ernst Jeffery, has challenged the objectivity of the military judge, Colonel Dennis Kamperveen, claiming that one of the victims, André Kamperveen, and the judge, have a typical grandfather.
President-in-Office of the Council Chamber, Judge Dinesh Sewratten, has already indicated that the hearing cannot continue until a judgment has been reached on the challenge.
In addition, the Court of Justice is expected to appoint a new member to hear the matter in place of Kamperveen.
Media reports here said that if the challenge by Bouterse’s lawyer is upheld, the appeal against his sentence will have to be heard again.
In August 2021, the Court Martial of Suriname upheld the 2019 military court ruling of a 20-year jail term on Bouterse following a trial that had been going on for several years.
In 2017, Bouterse, along with 23 co-defendants, had appeared in the Military Court after the Court of Justice had earlier rejected a motion to stop the trial. The former military officers and civilians had been charged with December 8, 1982, murders of 15 men, including journalists, military officers, union leaders, lawyers, business people, and university lecturers.
The prosecution had alleged that the men were arrested on the night of December 7 and 8 of that year and transferred to Fort Zeelandia, then the headquarters of the Surinamese National Army. They said the men were tortured that night and summarily executed.
and then 