Former President Desi Bouterse was given a 20-year prison sentence in Suriname, and the prosecution has asked the High Court of Justice to uphold that sentence.
The 74-year-old was found guilty in 2019 of ordering 15 political rivals' extrajudicial executions forty years prior.
Since then, Bouterse has filed an appeal against this decision, and he cannot be detained until it is resolved.
Later this year, the court is anticipated to make a decision regarding the sentence.
Involvement in the executions has been denied by Bouterse. In Paramaribo, the nation's capital, he insists that the victims, who included lawyers, union leaders, and journalists, were shot while attempting to flee a colonial-era fortress.
The High Court will make its ruling on the sentence known after the appeal hearing for the former leader concludes at the end of March.
In recent testimony, Bouterse acknowledged hearing gunshots on the day the prisoners were killed, but he insisted he did not order their execution.
Instead, he has assigned responsibility for the deaths to his deceased deputy, Paul Bhagwandas. However, witnesses said Bouterse was there when the victims were killed.
Seven years after Suriname's independence from the Netherlands, the killings occurred in 1982. In the past, Bouterse's attorneys have contended that the victims worked with the US, the Dutch, and France to remove him from office.
As head of the military government and de facto ruler of Suriname in the 1980s, Bouterse presided over the country.
He was elected president in 2010, after a free and fair election, and he was re-elected in 2015. He served as president until his party lost power in 2020.
