29 April 2008
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The monitors of former President Charles Taylor's trial report for www.charlestaylortrial.org
Prosecution witness Alimamy Bobson Sesay completed his testimony today, with Defense Counsel Morris Anyah completing his cross-examination, and Prosecutor Shyamala Alagendra conducting a brief re-examination. The court sat half an hour beyond its normal time of adjournment in order to finish hearing Sesay's evidence before adjourning for Dutch holidays observed for the remainder of this week.
In the remainder of the cross-examination, the defense sought to establish that Liberians fighting in Sierra Leone had not been under the control of Charles Taylor and that the January 6, 1999 invasion of Freetown was carried out by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), with no senior participation by the Revolutionary United Front. In seeking to diminish Sesay's credibility, Defense Counsel Anyah highlighted the witness's participation in atrocities. Through a review of payments made by the Special Court to the witness, Anyah also implied that Sesay had a financial motive to testify against Taylor. During re-examination of Sesay, Prosecutor Alagendra focused on links between Taylor and the RUF, and the involvement of senior RUF leadership in the Freetown invasion.
Defense denies Taylor's role in supporting AFRC/RUF
Anyah began the day by asking Sesay about Liberians fighting in Sierra Leone. He showed the witness prosecution notes from a previous statement in which Sesay had told prosecutors that of the Liberians sent to reinforce AFRC/RUF forces in 1998 and 1999, he only knew of Special Task Force (STF) members. (According to previous testimony, STF members had part of their roots in the army of former Liberian President Samuel Doe and the anti-Taylor rebel movement ULIMO.) Sesay explained that when they first came, he and others had assumed they were all STF, until the commander who brought them, "05″, introduced a number of them as being former fighters of Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL). Anyah pointed to evidence from a previous witness, Perry Kamara, that the Liberians in the Red Lion Battalion were former bodyguards of Liberian RUF commander Dennis Mingo ("Superman"). Sesay said he didn't know about that and didn't dispute it, but stood by his contention that commander 05 introduced some of the Liberians as being former NPFL fighters.
Sesay repeated his testimony that a commander named "KBC", a member of the Sierra Leone Army (SLA - a term often used interchangeably with AFRC after May 1997) who had fled to Guinea with a group of SLA members in 1998, had collectively sought refuge in Liberia from the hostile Guinean government. According to Sesay, KBC said that Charles Taylor reorganized these forces, armed them, and sent them to senior RUF commander Sam Bockarie ("Mosquito") for use in the January 1999 invasion of Freetown. When KBC arrived he was with only three other Liberian fighters. Anyah pointed to this, and Sesay's testimony that there were about 20 former NPFL fighters in the Red Lion Battalion in seeking to diminish the prosecution contention that Taylor played a significant role in the Freetown invasion. Sesay responded by saying that KBC told him his group had been much larger, but that they had fought in places including Kono, Magburaka and Makeni, where attacks on ECOMOG forces had been an integral part of the larger invasion plan. Sesay said that without the rebel attacks in these places, ECOMOG would have been able to reinforce its troops in Freetown to repel the invasion force. Sesay testified that a further 50 reinforcements, some of them STF Liberians, came to reinforce the AFRC/RUF forces retreating from Freetown in the third week of January 1999. Anyah asked why Sesay had previously only spoken of SLA/RUF fighters with this group of reinforcements, and Sesay explained that apart from the SLA, all other fighters referred to themselves as RUF once they were fighting together.
Anyah read comments from Charles Taylor at a press conference during the war, in which Taylor said that Liberians fighting in Sierra Leone were mercenaries fighting on their own. Sesay agreed that some were in the STF, which was still officially a part of the Sierra Leone Army, but said that Liberian RUF fighters named by Anyah were not part of the SLA or STF. He asked to add a comment about the Taylor press conference, but Presiding Judge Teresa Doherty cut him off and told him that the prosecution would have an opportunity to raise the issue on re-examination.
Anyah easily established that Sesay had no first-hand knowledge of diamond transactions between the RUF and Liberia, and had only been told about them by Superman. Sesay agreed with Anyah that this was the case, and also said he had no knowledge of diamond transactions between AFRC leader Johnny Paul Koroma and Charles Taylor.
Argument that the AFRC acted without senior RUF involvement in Freetown
Anyah tried to establish that the AFRC had its own reasons for invading Freetown. In answer to his questions, Sesay confirmed that there was discontent in the military under the new president of Sierra Leone, Ahmad Tejan-Kabbah, following his 1996 election. He also agreed that talk of a coup had circulated before the army toppled Kabbah in May 1997, but that prior to this, there had been no cooperation between the SLA and the RUF. Sesay confirmed that when the junta period ended in February 1998, there were still separate AFRC and RUF commanders.
Anyah pointed to the Kabbah government's execution of 24 AFRC (and no RUF) members in October 1998 as a main motivation for the January 1999 Freetown invasion, and cited Sesay's testimony of AFRC leader Saj Musa referencing the executions as a reason for the invasion. Sesay agreed, but said that on the day of the executions, RUF leader Sam Bockarie had given a radio interview also citing the executions as a reason for the AFRC/RUF to invade Freetown. Although no RUF members were among those executed, Sesay said that the Kabbah government had imprisoned RUF members, including the group's leader, Foday Sankoh. Anyah cited Sesay's testimony of Saj Musa's exhortation to his fighters that they should invade Freetown "to reinstate the army" as a further rationale for the invasion held by the AFRC but not the RUF. Sesay rejected Anyah's main contention that the AFRC acted alone, again stating that the invasion of Freetown was part of a larger, coordinated plan that included attacks on ECOMOG in other parts of Sierra Leone that had been led by the RUF.
In reviewing the movements of the rebel group that Sesay was part of, the witness confirmed that in the lead up to the Freetown invasion, and during the early part of the invasion itself, the most senior RUF fighter present had been a captain. However, Sesay said that once the rebels opened up the central Pademba Road Prison, RUF commander Gibril Massaquoi - a major - had become active in the invasion force. Anyah underscored that it was AFRC commander Alex Tamba Brima ("Gullit") who had led the invasion force, and Gullit's requests to the RUF for reinforcement did not arrive or only arrived late. Sesay testified again that the reinforcements faced delay by fighting in other parts of the country. He did not dispute that Saj Musa and Sam Bockarie had argued over the radio, and that Bockarie had told Musa he would not send reinforcements. However, he said that following the death of Saj Musa on the eve of the invasion, relations improved between the RUF and AFRC. Sesay testified that when RUF commander Issa Sesay arrived with reinforcements after the invasion, Gullit took orders from him for a second attempt at taking the capital.
Witness participation in atrocities
Anyah asked the witness a series of questions about atrocities that he personally had committed. Sesay admitted to killing more than 60 civilians from 1998 onwards. On further questioning, he also admitted that he had been part of an AFRC force that opened fire on protesting students in 1997, and that his group had killed two students. Asked whether he had participated in notorious rapes on the day of the shooting, Sesay responded, "I did not rape on that particular day." Anyah asked when he did rape. He testified that in Kono he captured a young girl of about 16, kept her as his "bush wife", and raped her. Then in Freetown, he said, he also captured a girl of around 15-16, kept her as a bush wife, and raped her.
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