Suriname’s former dictator will face a final verdict this month in the years-long judicial process over the 1982 killings of 15 political opponents that deeply scarred the South American country.
Desi Bouterse and two dozen others were accused of rounding up well-known people including lawyers, journalists and a university professor and executing them in a colonial fortress in the capital, Paramaribo.
Bouterse, who remains chair of the National Democratic Party, is scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 20 along with four other suspects. The 78-year-old former leader is the main suspect, having been convicted twice in the killings. He has accepted “political responsibility” for them but insists he was not present for them.
Bouterse led a bloodless coup to become dictator from 1980 to 1987 and was democratically elected president from 2010 to 2020. He unsuccessfully tried to push through an amnesty law after being elected in 2010.
Read more here.
