allAfrica.com: Liberia: Cross-Examination of Isaac Mongor Takes on New Angles (Page 1 of 2)

The monitors of former President Charles Taylor's trial report for www.charlestaylortrial.org

Cross-examination of Isaac Mongor Takes on New Angles, Features Grisly Accounts of RUF Atrocities and the Rationales for Them

As the cross-examination of prosecution witness Isaac Mongor entered its fourth day, the defense added new elements beyond continued attacks on the witness's credibility. Mongor's testimony included grim accounts of RUF tactics and the reasoning behind them. Defense attorney Terry Munyard led Mongor through accounts of atrocities he himself had committed, including killings, the burning of houses, and sexual assault. Additionally, the defense seemed eager to show that there was no system of discipline within the RUF for abuse of civilians. Munyard was also able to elicit testimony from Mongor that from sometime in 1993 until 1998, the RUF had received no arms or ammunition from Charles Taylor, but had purchased weapons from the anti-Taylor Liberian faction ULIMO in 1996 and 1997.

This summary does not include about one-and-a-half hours of testimony missed due to a disruption in the video and audio feed from the courtroom in the late morning and early afternoon. Court sources said that the disruption was either due to a technical problem at the International Criminal Court or with the court's commercial internet service in The Netherlands. Those interested in reviewing the portion of the trial missing from this summary and our earlier live-blog can find a link to the Special Court's full official transcript of today's proceedings on our Daily Summaries page tomorrow.

Mongor's relationship with the Office of the Prosecutor

The day began with the defense citing prosecution interview notes from September 2006, which stated that Mongor had offered to visit another former fighter, "C.O. Tactical", who had refused to cooperate with the prosecution, in order to convince him to cooperate. Mongor said he was a Liberian NPFL man and a Taylor loyalist, working as a taxi driver in Makeni in 2006. Munyard asked whether the plan was to threaten to get him in trouble for living in Sierra Leone as a foreigner if he refused to cooperate, but Mongor denied this. Munyard then asked whether Mongor had a reputation for violence, and Mongor said he didn't.

Atrocities committed by Mongor and the RUF

That question led into a series of questions revealing atrocities that Mongor had committed during the war in Sierra Leone. These included killings of civilians trying to escape to Guinea in 1992 in the village of Sandiaru, near Kailahun. Mongor said "more than a dozen" men and women had been killed by himself and his fighters, but could not recall that children had been killed. Mongor said he had ordered the shooting deaths after receipt of an order from Sankoh that anyone coming from the direction of Guinea was to be killed, and this included civilians because they could act as spies.

At this point, the video and audio feed was lost for about an hour and a half. When transmission from the court resumed, Mongor was answering questions about burning down houses, some of them with people inside. He testified that he ordered burnings and conducted them himself, and did not care if people were inside because they were considered enemies. In response to questions from Munyard, Mongor explained that civilians could be considered enemies if Kamajors or government troops simply passed through their village, even if the civilians had nothing to do with this.

Munyard then asked about killings conducted by Mongor and his fighters in Kissi Town. Mongor stated that he knew those people to be Kamajors because some wore "country cloth" that was sometimes used as a Kamajor uniform. Under further questioning, he conceded that those without the purported uniform had also been killed without any investigation into whether they were indeed Kamajors. Asked why Mongor and his RUF men had killed the civilians who were suspected spies if they had already been captured, Mongor replied that it was because they considered the villagers to be enemies.

Later in the day, Mongor said he could not recall whether he had personally given orders to execute civilians for spying, but he described the general RUF practice. Civilians, including women and children who Mongor said were as young as ten could be shot to death for "conniving" if they were suspected of spying, giving food to government or Kamajor soldiers, or merely moving from government-held territory. Additionally, their villages would be burned down in reprisal, even if just one or a few were suspected of "conniving".

Asked if he himself had participated in sexual assaults, Mongor said that he had. He went on to say that he had taken a woman without paying a bride price to her people, and said that this was what constituted "rape".

Inconsistent accounts

Munyard confronted Mongor with a statement he had given prosecution investigators in September 2006 in which he said that - in contradiction of his testimony before the court today - he had never ordered the burning of houses and had never been present when it happened. Mongor admitted that this was what he had told investigators at the time. He explained the discrepancy by saying that he only now recalled burning houses himself because Munyard had "gone deep" into it by asking about what he had done himself. When Munyard suggested that the investigator had asked the very same question in 2006, Mongor said "maybe you're right". Munyard accused him of lying, which Mongor denied, instead saying he may not have been composed at the time, and "maybe I had some fear".

web allafrica.com	Enter your search terms	Submit search form
OR subscribers use AllAfrica's premium search engine


Use our pull-down menus to find more stories

Today's Most Active Stories