Liberia: Former RUF Officer Testifies About Extensive Links Between Taylor and AFRC/RUF
9 May 2008
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The monitors of former President Charles Taylor's trial report for www.charlestaylortrial.org
Former RUF Officer Testifies About Extensive Links Between Taylor and AFRC/RUF
Crime-base witness TF1-028 completed her testimony this morning, and the prosecution called its next witness, Karmoh Kanneh. Kanneh was forcibly recruited by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) at the beginning of the war and later became an officer. He offered testimony today linking Charles Taylor to the RUF in various ways: as its most senior commander, a recipient of diamonds mined through forced labor in Sierra Leone, a contact for ammunition purchases in Burkina Faso, and as an instigator of attacks by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and RUF on Kono and Freetown.
Outside the courtroom, the Special Court for Sierra Leone announced today that Taylor's former vice president, Moses Blah, is scheduled to take the witness stand next week. Blah has received a subpoena from the prosecution. The testimony is expected to begin on Tuesday, depending on when the prior witness finishes. Chief Prosecutor Stephen Rapp himself will lead Blah in his testimony.
Witness TF1-028 concludes her testimony
The day began with Defense Counsel Morris Anyah continuing his cross-examination of protected prosecution witness TF1-028, a woman who testified that she had been abducted by rebels in 1998 and held for over a year. Anyah alternately highlighted the witness's testimony that most of the forces in the group that abducted her were AFRC and not RUF, called into question the clarity of her recollection, and sought to discredit her testimony and that of a previous witness by pointing to a possible conflict in their accounts.
Anyah covered the following main points:
- Although the witness testified this week and in March 2006 in the RUF trial that a commander named Tito came to Colonel Eddie Town in a separate group from AFRC commander Saj Musa, Anyah confronted her with notes from an earlier statement to the prosecution that reported her saying that Tito came together with Musa. The witness denied having said this to prosecutors.
- Anyah attempted to clarify the witness's account of the composition of the Red Lion Battalion that came to Colonel Eddie Town. The witness confirmed her earlier testimony that it was a group of 100, containing fighters and civilians. She said the total number of fighters was 70, all Liberians, together with 30 Sierra Leoneans. However, she also said that some of the Sierra Leoneans had guns.
- The witness agreed that she had not mentioned the Red Lion battalion to prosecutors in her first interview in 2003, saying she had been afraid of the investigators because she did not know who they were, and could not tell them apart from RUF and soldiers. Anyah noted that she had given them the names of commanders at the time.
- Anyah asked why the witness had not mentioned that members of the Red Lion Battalion were Liberians when she testified in the RUF trial in 2006. The witness insisted she had mentioned it, but Anyah said it was not to be found in the transcript and the prosecution did not contradict him on this point.
- The witness agreed that she did not know what the Red Lion Battalion did in Freetown in January 1999.
- The witness confirmed that after Saj Musa's death, she did not see the commander of the Red Lion Battalion, Mohamed Bajehjeh, again. However, she said she did see members of the group.
- The witness said that Five-Five had been the commander of the group she was with until Saj Musa arrived at Colonel Eddie Town. She said that after Saj Musa was killed, Five-Five and Gullit had been the senior commanders, but she hadn't known which of them was in charge. Anyah read from the transcript of her testimony at the RUF trial, in which she said that Five-Five had been in charge after Musa's death. The witness denied having said it.
- The witness confirmed that after Saj Musa's arrival in Colonel Eddie Town, he and Five-Five had addressed a meeting of commanders that she overheard. She said they told the commanders they were going to take Freetown to reinstate the army.
- The witness confirmed that she had been in the same group with Five-Five and Gullit from the time of her abduction in Karina all the way until the group entered Freetown. Asked by Anyah if she knew a commander called "Ice T", she said that she had seen him in Colonel Eddie Town, but not after that. Anyah told the witness that Ice T, Alimamy Bobson Sesay, had recently given evidence in the trial, and said he had been part of the same group with Five-Five and Gullit along the same journey leading eventually to Freetown in January 1999.
- The witness reiterated that she had been with the group in Rosos for seven months. When Anyah said Sesay had testified that the group had been there from August to October 1998, however, she agreed that it had been that time span.
- The witness confirmed that she had traveled with the group through a number of villages on the way to Freetown, and again said that she had seen Ice T in none of them.
- Anyah asked the witness about her testimony that she had spent six days with the group in Mandahar, where she said her brother had been hacked to death by rebels with machetes. Anyah asked why she had told the prosecution in her first interview that she had been in Mandahar for two days, and had not mentioned the killing of her brother. Anyah also noted that she had not mentioned the killing of her brother when telling the RUF trial about her time in Mandahar. The witness claimed that she had both the prosecutors and the RUF trial chamber. She confirmed, however, that she had not told the RUF trial about the rape of her 12-year-old niece at Mandahar.
- The witness said that of all the people abducted in Karina, only one had been trained by the rebels as a fighter.
Court went into a brief private session requested by Anyah so that he could conclude his cross-examination by asking questions that would reveal the identity of the witness.
When the proceedings resumed in open session, prosecutor Shyamala Alagendra conducted a brief re-examination of the witness:
- Alagendra sought to counter doubts raised by the defense about how the witness could not have seen previous witness Alimamy Bobson Sesay after leaving Colonel Eddie Town if they both claimed to have been part of the same group that went through numerous villages on the way to Freetown. Asked how large the total group of fighters and captured civilians had been, the witness said there had been 1,500 of them.
- Alagendra asked what the witness meant yesterday when saying that in the Red Lion Battalion there were boys on whose chests they wrote "RUF". The witness said that the commanders carved "RUF" on the chests of the 12-14 year-old boys with a blade.
- Asked how she knew that the fighters with Bajehjeh were RUF, the witness said they wore red headbands, had "RUF" written on their guns in red ink, and that the boys had "RUF" carved on their chests.
- Asking about an apparent contradiction raised by the defense yesterday relating to the make-up of the Red Lion Battalion, the witness said that she did not know what the terms "STF" or "Special Task Force" meant.
Prosecution calls its next witness: Karmoh Kanneh
Prosecutor Julia Bailey called the next witness, who had agreed to have his protective measures removed and testify openly by name. The witness said his name was Karmoh Kanneh, and that during the war he had been called "Eagle".
Kanneh testified that when rebels came to his village in 1991, he was abducted with 16 others and sent for military training. They were told that if they tried to escape, they would be killed. Kanneh said the training had been conducted mostly by Liberians who belonged to Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL). Kanneh said the training commanders told him that they were there to assist RUF leader Foday Sankoh so that afterwards "they could hand the war to us". The witness said the training camp had about 500 trainees who had been captured, including men, women, and about 50 children between the ages of 10 and 15. In the six-week training, they learned how to use a gun, set ambushes, attack, and "make an area fearful". Kanneh explained that this meant clearing a town of all of its inhabitants.
The witness said that following his training, he was sent with a group following a Liberian commander to attack the southeastern Sierra Leonean town of Joru. After defeat there, and continuous pressure by government soldiers, the witness's group came to Zimmi, where he described seeing a number of RUF commanders, including Liberians and a Gambian who had entered Sierra Leone through Liberia. From Zimmi, the group retreated to Bo Waterside, on the Liberian border. There, RUF leader Foday Sankoh complained to the soldiers that the NPFL members who had come were no longer fighting, and instead focused on looting. The witness said that after a short posting in a nearby village, his group was attacked and they again retreated to Bo Waterside, and then into Liberia.
