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Liberia: Former RUF Radio Operator Completes His Testimony, And A New Prosecution Witness Takes The Stand
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GUEST BLOG
16 April 2008
Posted to the web 18 April 2008
The monitors of former President Charles Taylor's trial report for www.charlestaylortrial.org
Former RUF Radio Operator Completes His Testimony, And A New Prosecution Witness Takes The Stand
Protected prosecution witness TF1-516 completed his testimony today. Defense counsel Morris Anyah finished his cross-examination just before the lunch break, and then prosecutor Mohamed Bangura conducted a brief re-examination. Near the end of the day, the prosecution called its next witness to the stand: Alimamy Bobson Sesay, a former member of the Sierra Leone Army.
The day began with lead prosecutor Brenda Hollis requesting that the court go into private session to discuss a matter relating to matters discussed in closed session yesterday. After deliberating for about ten minutes, the chamber rejected the prosecution application for a closed session.
Defense completes its cross-examination
At the conclusion of its cross-examination of prosecution witness TF1-516, the defense sought to raise doubts about the witness's credibility through a number of means.
Continuing one type of questioning from yesterday, Anyah implied that parts of the witness's story simply didn't make sense:
- Asked when he had first seen former RUF leader Sam Bockarie in Monrovia, the witness said it had been December 2000, but that then he had seen him nearly every day at Yeaten's compound. Anyah was incredulous that he could have been assigned to Liberia when Bockarie was in Monrovia for a full year without seeing him. The witness explained that he had often been at the front lines. Anyah noted that the witness testified to seeing other RUF commanders at Benjamin Yeaten's compound during that period.
- The witness testified that he did not know whether Foday Sankoh and Johnny Paul Koroma had been in Liberia following the July 1999 Lomé Peace Accords. He said he had not been aware of Sankoh's movements following his 1997 arrest in Nigeria until hearing sometime in 1999 that Sankoh had arrived in Buedu. He knew vaguely that at some point Sankoh had been moved from detention in Nigeria to detention in Sierra Leone. Anyah wondered how the witness, who testified that while working as a radio operator he had still been able to listen to RUF radio communications, could not have known that after Lomé, Sankoh had spent an entire week in Monrovia meeting various people including Johnny Paul Koroma. Further, he expressed disbelief that the witness would not have known that Sankoh and Koroma attended an elaborate ceremony in October 1999 prior to their return to Sierra Leone. Anyah asserted that Benjamin Yeaten had been present at that ceremony, but the witness said that if he had accompanied Yeaten to Monrovia, he likely would have been working in the radio room at the time.
- Anyah showed the witness a photograph, which the witness said was inside the RUF guesthouse in Monrovia. He identified four of the five individuals in the picture and said they had lived with him in the same camp in Zogoda. Anyah asked why, if that was true, the witness had only remembered three of their names in an earlier interview with the prosecution. The witness said he had to think, and that thinking about these events for a long time had spurred his memory.
- Anyah asked about the witness's departure from Liberia in 2001, and the witness said that he left without Yeaten's permission when people around him suspected that a Sierra Leonean had been communicating with Kamajor forces in Sierra Leone. The witness said he feared for his safety. He testified that when he got to Sierra Leone, he called Yeaten on the radio, but that Yeaten was not angry because it was usual for the witness to cross into Sierra Leone and come back. Shortly afterward, the witness joined the disarmament program in Sierra Leone. Anyah put to the witness that he was lying about calling Yeaten from Sierra Leone, but the witness said that he had even spoken to Yeaten after disarmament, for the last time, in late 2001.
Anyah spent part of the day quizzing the witness about various facts. He asked the witness again to mark the location of the RUF guesthouse in Monrovia and provide estimates for how long it took to get from there to Taylor's residence, and from Taylor's residence to Bockarie's residence. Anyah also asked the witness to name members of the Liberian Special Security Service (headed by Yeaten) and the Anti-Terrorist Unit. Anyah also asked the witness if he knew several individuals, but the witness said he did not remember them.
At the end of the cross-examination, Anyah went through the list of payments to the witness from both the prosecution and the Special Court's Witness and Victims Section, which is not a part of the Office of the Prosecutor. By doing so, Anyah seemed to imply that the witness had a financial incentive to testify against Taylor, but today he did not press that accusation overtly. The witness explained various items, including transportation expenses, payments of 10,000 Leones (about 3.30 U.S. dollars) per day for his time, communications expenses and meals. He said that in many cases money had not been given to him, but the court had paid expenses directly. Although for the most part he could not remember receiving payments on specific days, he could remember receiving them when he went to the court, and agreed that the total figures sounded about right.
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Prosecution re-examination of witness TF1-516
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