In Liberia, rebel commanders and fighters
suspected of being
responsible for war crimes and human rights violations still walk free,
many years after the end of the civil war (2003) which cost an estimated
200,000 Liberians their lives.
However, over the years, a number of suspected Liberian and non-Liberian
war criminals have been arrested in other countries, indicted, put on
trial or are still awaiting their trial (in Belgium, France, the
Netherlands, Switzerland, UK, USA).
The overview below presents them in alphabetical order, the date of the
arrest, and the status of the trial.
The list also includes a limited, not exhaustive number of Liberians who
- until now - have managed to escape from justice as well as two
Liberian high-ranking rebel commanders who passed away before paying for
their crimes.
Latest update: Guus Kouwenhoven, September 23, 2021
Warlords and war criminals in
alphabetical order:
George Boley
(deported from the USA; a free man in Liberia) George
Dweh (deceased) Jankuba Fofana (arrested in the
UK) Mohammed Jabbateh / Jungle Jabbah
(30 years jail sentence) Martina Johnson (arrested in
Belgium) Prince Y. Johnson (wanted by the
US; a free man in Liberia ) Kunti Kamara / Awaliwo Soumaworo
(arrested in France) Alieu Kosiah (arrested in
Switzerland; 20 years jail sentence) Guus Kouwenhoven (Dutch; 19 years
jail sentence; fugitive in SA) Gibril Massaquoi (Sierra Leonean;
arrested in Finland; trial ongoing) Agnes Reeves Taylor (arrested in
the UK, released; free in Liberia) Charles Taylor (sentenced to 50
years in jail by the SCSL) Chuck Taylor (USA; 97 years jail
sentence) Moses Thomas (arrested in the USA,
fled to Liberia, free man) Thomas Woewiyu (USA; found guilty;
died before being sentenced) Alexander Zinnah (deported from
the USA; a free man in Liberia)
George Boley
George Boley, President Samuel Doe's right-hand man,
was arrested in January 2010 by the US immigration
authorities. He was charged
with lying in
order to gain entry into the U.S., and with
committing extrajudicial killings while in another
country. Boley, who denied the accusations, was in
custody for two years. In 2012 he was deported from
the USA - the official reason for his deportation was his
role in the recruitment and use of
child soldiers - and sent back to Liberia where he is
a free man, despite one of the main recommendations
of Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission
(TRC) to prosecute him for war crimes together with
a number of other Liberian warlords. In 2017 he was
elected in the House of Representatives,
representing Grand Gedeh County, his home county.
George Boley, Liberian Warlord, Is Finally Under
Arrest
NB A must-read; a
first hand report on Dr. George Boley's involvement
in Liberia's civil war including the recruitment and
arming of child soldiers; feeding them drugs; and
ordering them to rape and kill.
January 27, 2010
Source: The Atlantic - Jeffrey Goldberg
George Dweh, Notorious Civil War Actor, Is Dead
George Dweh died of a heart attack in April 2020
without being tried for his role in war crimes and
human rights violations during Liberia's civil
war(s).
"George Dweh, a cousin of the late President Samuel
K. Doe, is on record for his active role in
systematic killings of Manos, Gios and other
perceived enemies in Monrovia during the Liberian
civil war. He, according to reports, was a member of
the Nyonblu Tailey death squad that roamed Monrovia
especially Sinkor at the height of the civil war in
1990. (...)
In one human rights report about massacres committed
in Liberia, George Dweh is recorded among others as
one who allegedly participated in the massacre of 27
Gio and Mano families that were members of the Armed
Forces of Liberia (AFL) residing at the Barclay
Training Center (BTC). In other instances, George
Dweh is recorded for allegedly eliminating the
Johnny Nah family in Monrovia in 1990, and
participated in the massacre of 250 persons, most of
them Gio and Mano tribes, at the John F. Kennedy
Hospital on August 2, 1990.
Dweh’s later became an active member of LURD
(Liberia United for Reconciliation and Democracy)
that invaded Liberia in 1999 in Lofa County from
neighboring Guinea. He subsequently became a
founding member of the Movement for Democracy in
Liberia (MODEL) that came by way of the Ivory Coast
in 2003."
Source: Daily Observer - Joaquin M. Sendolo
April 6, 2020
Jankuba Fofana
On Thursday, August
27, 2020 the British Police detained Jankuba Fofana,
a former fighter and a frontline commander for the
Liberia United for Reconciliation and Democracy
(LURD). The 45-year-old Fofana was arrested in
southeast London on suspicion of war crimes
committed in Liberia during this country's civil
war, between 1989 and 2003. Later he was set free
pending investigation.
Man arrested in London on suspicion of Liberia civil
war crimes released under investigation
Officers questioned the suspect, a 45-year-old-
Liberian man, Jankuba Fofana, at a central London
police station before releasing him on Friday.
Jankuba Fofana, a former LURD commander, was
arrested on suspicion of offences contrary to
section 51 of the International Criminal Court Act
2001.
"Fofana was a major player in the civil war and was
at the center of ceasefire talks between Taylor’s
forces and LURD at the height of the civil war."
Source: FrontPage Africa (Liberia)
August 28, 2020
Jungle Jabbah / Mohammed Jabbateh
Mohammed Jabbateh a.k.a. Jungle
Jabbah was a high-ranking officer of ULIMO-K. He was
arrested in Philadelphia in April 2016, put on
trial, found guilty, and in 2018 sentenced to
30 years in prison. The sentence was upheld in
September 2020.
Martina Johnson
Martina Johnson was arrested in
Belgium in 2014. She has not been tried yet; she has
been placed under house arrest.
Belgian investigators drag feet on Martina Johnson
(April 2, 2020)
The pace of Belgian investigations into the role of
alleged rebel commander Martina Johnson during the
Liberian civil war is trying the patience of the
defence and civil parties.
Six years after the case was opened, investigations
have not yet been concluded and Belgian
investigators have not yet been to Liberia, whilst
other European judicial authorities have.
It is incomprehensible that the Belgian judicial
authorities are unable to obtain authorization to
investigate in Liberia.
April 2, 2020
JusticeInfo.Net - Fondation Hirondelle - Gaelle
Ponselet
Perhaps Liberia's most notorious (former) warlord,
Prince Y. Johnson, needs no introduction. Under his
command and upon his orders, his men of the I-NPFL
(Independent Patriotic Front of Liberia, a
break-away faction of Charles Taylor's NPFL)
tortured to death Samuel Doe, then President of
Liberia (September 1990). The crime was videotaped
and circulated widely in West Africa and elsewhere.
It's still available on YouTube.
But PYJ, as he is commonly called, is responsible
for many more atrocities. One of his crimes concerns
the murder of a US citizen, Hladini, who was born as
Linda Jury, but later joined the Hara Krishna
movement (officialy called the International Society
for Krishna Consciousness, ISKCON) . In 1990 she was
brutally murdered by Prince Johnson and his men.
Since 2005, warlord-turned-preacher-and-senator
Prince Johnson has been representing Nimba
County, his home county, in the Liberian Senate.
Awaliho Soumaworo a.k.a. Kunti Kamara
Arrested in France (2018); released due to a
procedural errror (2019)Re-arrested in France,
January 10, 2020 (see below)
Kunti Kamara, whose real name is (might be) Awaliho
Soumaworo, is a Liberian with Dutch nationality. He
was arrested in France on September 4, 2018 for his
alleged involvement in crimes committed during the
First Liberian Civil War (1989-1996) while acting as
a ULIMO-K commander. He is accused of
human rights violations including torture, using
child soldiers, murder, slavery, even cannibalism.
More specifically, the 44-year-old Liberian Kunti
Kamara, a former commander of ULIMO (United Movement
of Liberia for Democracy) is suspected of
involvement in abuses during the civil war in
Liberia between 1992 and 1997. According to a
testimony collected by the association Civitas
Maxima, he would have opened the belly of a man with
an axe in order to eat his heart with his men. The
complaint also accuses him of enslaving people of an
ethnicity different from his own and the murder of a
woman considered a witch.
September 2019, in an unexpected development:
Early September 2019, Kunti Kamara, who was in
pre-trial detention in Paris on suspicion of crimes
against humanity and torture, was released due to a
procedural error. The former ULIMO-K commander was
placed under judicial supervision with the
prohibition to leave the national territory
(France).
See the following articles:
Alieu Kosiah
Arrested in Switzerland (Nov., 2014); officially
indicted (March 2019); trial postponed ; trial
opened (December, 2020);found guily (July 2021),
gets 20 years in jail.
Also see
Civitas Maxima homepage: Latest News
The article above is a translation of “Le
procès qui a fait entrer des juges suisses dans
l’histoire” originally posted on Le Temps on
July 14, 2021. This article was part of the special
Op Ed section on Le Temps dedicated to international
justice, with Alain Werner, director of Civitas
Maxima, serving as guest editor.
Situation as of January 31, 2021
On 31 October 2019, the Swiss Federal
Criminal Court (FCC) listed the criminal case
against Alieu Kosiah for trial in Bellinzona. The
Court has decided to only proceed with the
preliminary questions and the hearing of the
defendant from December 3 to December 11, 2020. The
rest of the trial – the hearing of the plaintiffs
and the witnesses, and the final pleadings – will
take place from February 15 to March 5, 2021. This
will be the first time a Liberian national will be
tried for war crimes in relation to the Liberian
Civil Wars, and the first time the FCC will hold a
war crimes trial.
Source:
Civitas Maxima
Latest developments 2020
Two recent background articles based on
interviews in Liberia:
Trial of Liberian Alieu Koosiah opens in Switzerland
Alieu Kosiah, a former Liberian warlord, is the
first person to be tried in Switzerland for war
crimes before a civil court. His trial has been
repeatedly postponed. It opens on 3 December in
Bellinzona in a tense atmosphere, after six years of
pre-trial detention and under the restrictive
sanitary conditions of a pandemic. A challenge for
the Swiss federal prosecutor's office. And an
important moment for Liberia.
Justice Info, Fondation Hirondelle - Antoine Harari
December 3, 2020
Historic Liberia war crimes trial to open in
Switzerland The trial of Alieu Kosiah, a former Liberian
commander accused of rape, pillage, assassinations,
and an act of cannibalism opens in Switzerland this
week. Reuters - Emma Farge
December 1, 2020
New dates set for Alieu Kosiah Trial in 2020
After being postponed twice due to the Covid-19
virus, the trial of Alieu Kosiah is scheduled to
take place in Bellinzona, Switzerland, from November
16 till December 18, 2020.
August 21, 2020
Civitas Maxima
International Crimes: Spotlight on Switzerland’s War
Crimes Unit
By Julia Crawford, JusticeInfo.net
February 15, 2019
"Former Liberian rebel leader Alieu Kosiah is one of
the two people in custody in a Swiss jail under
universal jurisdiction. He has been there for more
than four years, suspected of
war crimes in his country. The other is former
Gambian Interior Minister Ousman Sonko, arrested in
early 2017 and under investigation for crimes
against humanity. Both cases were brought to the war
crimes unit by Swiss NGOs –
Civitas Maxima and
TRIAL International respectively."
Paris arrest a new step to justice for Liberian war
crimes
By Thierry Cruvellier, JusticeInfo.net
September 11, 2018
"2018 is a good year for the activists who have
vowed they will not let the crimes committed in
Liberia’s wars of the 1990s go unpunished. After two
landmark judgments in the United States, they have
now got another arrest in Paris, and trials are also
expected in three other European countries." Read
the article for more details.
'Dutch
fugitive' Guus Kouwenhoven
Found guilty by Dutch Supreme Court and sentenced
(2017); fled to South Africa; the Dutch requested
his extradition; South African decison multiple
times postponed; extradition request definitely
denied (Febr 2020); visitor's visa cancelled,
declared an 'undesirable person' (Nov 2020); denial
of extradition request overruled (Dec 2020). On
September 22, 2021 the Supreme Court of Appeal of
South Africa dismissed Kouwenhoven's appeal. As one
newspaper reported: 'The South African Government
is now free to extradite Mr. Kouwenhoven to the
Netherlands.' (African Star, September 22, 2021,
see below).
Hence, the question emerges:
Will South African autorities finally put
Kouwenhoven on a plane to Amsterdam, will the
convicted war criminal flee from justice or will Kouwenhoven's
expensive lawyers be once more successfull in
delaying justice? The Supreme Court of Appeal of
South Africa notes in its Judgement (page 3, note
2): 'He (Kouwenhoven - note of the webmaster
FVDK) has lodged an appeal to the European Court of
Human Rights, which it appears is still pending.'
It's odd that a man who has been found
guilty of the illegal importation of arms which were
used to kill innocent civilians in Africa, tries to
save his skin with an appeal to the European Court
of Human Rights!
The extradition saga
At the end of 2019, hope re-emerged that Kouwenhoven
would soon be extradited, after an address by senior
prosecutor Christopher Burke (South Africa) before
the Cape Town Magistrate's Court.
However, to the disappointment of many, on February 21, 2020 Cape Town
Magistrate Ingrid Arntsen ruled in favour of Guus
Kouwenhoven. She said
it was with “great regret” she had decided that
Dutch arms dealer Guus Kouwenhoven could not be
extradited to the Netherlands because 'the
Extradition Act made it clear that people could be
extradited only in relation to offences alleged to
have been committed within the territorial
jurisdiction of the state requesting extradition.'
On March 16,
2020 the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC) was seeking an
order to set aside a visa granted to the convicted
Dutch war criminal. The rights group will argue that
Kouwenhoven did not disclose his conviction for war
crimes when applying for a visa.
Update as of December 30, 2020
In an unexpected development South Africa
cancelled the visitor's visa of Guus Kouwenhoven and
declared him an "undesirable person" whereas the
State successfully appealed the denial of the
extradition request by the Cape Town Magistrates'
Court.
Following a hearing of the case on 27 October 2020,
the Department of Home Affairs (DHA, South Africa)
on 5 November 2020 declared Kouwenhoven undesirable
in terms of sections 30(1)(f) and (g) of the
Immigration Act, and notified him of the decision to
cancel his visitor’s visa. Kouwenhoven can now
appeal the decision by the DHA. If he fails to make
representations, within ten days, the cancellation
of his visa will become effective.
The South African State - in the person of the
Western Cape’s Director of Public Prosecutions, via
Advocate Christopher Burke - successfully appealed
the February 2020 Cape Town Magistrates’ Court
ruling (denying the extradition request). On
December 23, 2020 the Western Cape High Court ruled
in favor of the State appeal. This means that
Kouwenhoven may still face extradition.
Gibril Massaquoi Former RUF commander and
SierraLeone national, arrested in Finland in March
2020; accused of war crimes and crimes against
humanity allgedly committed in Liberia. Gibril
Massaquoi played an important role - as a
key-witness - during the trial of
warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor who was
found guilty of war crimes and human rights
violations in Sierra Leone and sentenced to 50 years
in prison by the Special Court for Sierra Leone
(SCSL).
Latest news:
The trial of Gibril Masaquoi in Finland has
started on February 1, 2021. Throughout the trial,
Civitas Maxima publishes daily legal monitoring
for audiences around the world to follow the case.
The verdict of the Finnish court is expected in
2022.
Finnish Court To Hand Down Judgment In Early
2022:
Interesting reflection: The following article
was part of the special Op Ed section on Le Temps
dedicated to international justice, with Civitas
Maxima director Alain Werner serving as guest
editor.
The following press release published by Civitas
Maxima serves as an example. For more press releases
on the Massaquoi trial please visit the
Civitas Maxima site.
War Crimes Trial Coming to Liberian Soil Liberia is set to host the first war crimes trial
connected to the country’s civil war in February.
The Pirkanmaa District Court in Finland announced
Thursday that it will begin the trial of Gibril
Massaquoi, a Sierra Leonean, for war crimes
allegedly committed in Liberia in his role as a
commander of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF)
between 2001 and 2002 next week. Later in February
the court will move to Liberia and Sierra Leone to
hear from “several dozen witnesses named in the
case” in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea and visits
to the scenes of the alleged crimes, the court said
in a press release.
January 30, 2021
FrontPageAfrica, Monrovia, Liberia - James Harding
Giahyue
Arrested in the UK (2017); torture charges dismissed
(2019); returned to Liberia (July 2020) (Chronological order - most recent article first)
On Friday, July 17, 2020 Agnes Reeves Taylor again
set foot on Liberian soil - seven months after her
release from a UK prison - and arrived on RIA where
she was welcomed by stalwarts of the NPP party, the
political party created by her former husband,
Charles Taylor.
Chuck Taylor (son of
warlord-president Charles Taylor)
Chuck Taylor
Found guilty by US Court
(2009); sentenced to 97 years in prison
Moses Thomas
Moses Thomas
Arrested in the US (2018). Before his trial started
Thomas fled the United States (in 2020) and returned
to Liberia, where he is a free man since the Liberian
authorities fail to take action in the long dragging
battle for the establishment of a War Crimes Court.
AFL colonel Moses Thomas was commander of the
Special Terrorist Unit, and is being held
responsable for the massacre in the St. Peter’s
Lutheran Church in Sinkor, Monrovia, the
single-worst atrocity in the Liberian Civil War,
with about 600 people — predominantly Gios and
Manos— savagely murdered on July 29, 1990.
In May 2021, a Liberian organisation, the Center for
Justice and Accountability (CJA) requested on behalf
of four victims the U.S. District Court for the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania to find Moses
Thomas “liable for
extrajudicial killings, attempted extrajudicial
killings, torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment, war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
In September 2021,
Moses Thomas was found “liable” in the U.S. for war
atrocities.
Former NPFL rebel commander deported from USA
On Tuesday, agents of the U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement and Removal agency (ICE)
escorted Alexander Mentol Zinnah on a U.S.
Government plane to Liberia and turned him over the
immigration authorities in the West African country.
African Star
April 30, 2020
Ex-Taylor-Era Security force Commander Alexander
Mentol Zinnah among 9 deported to Liberia
MINNEAPOLIS — Alexander Mentol Zinnah, a member of
the Liberian security forces under the regime of
President Charles Taylor was removed by officers
with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s
(ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).
Zinnah, 56, arrived in Liberia escorted by ERO
officers on board an ICE charter removal flight and
was turned over to Liberian law enforcement
authorities.
In 2017, ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI)
St. Paul arrested Zinnah for immigration violations
and violating the terms of his parole into the U.S.
HSI St. Paul’s investigation revealed Zinnah was a
member of Charles Taylor’s NPFL, that engaged in a
wide range of human rights abuses including
massacres, torture, and kidnapping. Zinnah was also
a member of the Liberian National Police and served
as a commander in Grand Gedeh County, Liberia,
during the time that Charles Taylor was President of
Liberia.
FrontPageAfrica
April 29, 2020
Thomas Woewiyu
Thomas Woewiyu, co-founder of the National Patriotic
Front of Liberia (NPFL) and former NPFL spokesperson
, later Charles Taylor’s Minister of Defense, was
arrested in the USA in May 2014. He stood trial for
alleged war crimes, immigration fraud and perjury
and was found guilty.
Whilst awaiting sentencing he died of the corona
virus in April 2020.
Thomas Woewiyu faced trial starting June 11, 2018.
He was convicted of 11 out of 16 counts on July 3,
2018. He faces up to 110 years in prison. (source:
Civitas Maxima). His sentencing, originally
scheduled for October 15, was delayed by more than a
month until November 26, US Justice Department
officials announced on September 17, 2018.
Chronology of events (summary)
Latest news on top:
Alleged War Criminal Arrested
Original source: United States Department of
Justice, The United States Attorney’s Office,
Eastern District of Pennsylvania
May 13, 2014