IPNEWS: A reputable U.S. online news medium have revealed that US President Joe Biden is ready to take action against corrupt public officials past and present and former warlords who caused mayhem and destruction in Liberia.
The Website, National Interest, reports that Benoni Urey, who is currently the leader of a minor political party, All Liberian Party (ALP), and others directly cited in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, including Nimba controversial Senator, Prince Y. Johnson are likely next targets for arrest and prosecution.
There are two categories of the TRC conviction lists-War Crimes and Economic Crimes convicts.
Former rebel General Prince Yormie Johnson, a sitting Liberian senator representing Nimba County who was last December sanctioned by the United States Government based on the Global Magnitsky Act, may be arrested soon, according to reports.
Reports said recent prosecutions of some former Liberian warlords and sanctions of other politicians by the US show the lengths that the White House will go to pursue war criminals and kleptocrats in Liberia.
It said the sweeping legislation that authorizes sanctions against any individual viewed to have violated human rights or engaged in corruption in Liberia which is under consideration in the US Congress, is a clear sign of the US Government’s readiness to nip criminal public officials and former warlords in Liberia in the butt.
Prince Johnson publicly authorized, watched, and drank Budweiser Beer while his rebel tugs mutilated the living body of former Liberian President Samuel Kanyon Doe; before killing him.
Johnson also admitted during a TRC hearing in Monrovia that he was part of those who killed Burkina Faso’s President, Captain Thomas Sankara.
In December 2020, the United States sanctioned Senator Harry Varney Sherman, a former Chairman of Liberia’s ex-ruling party, for his involvement in a bribery scheme.
Under the Biden administration, the fight against corruption and impunity on a global scale has officially become a major foreign policy priority.
Nowhere is this policy more evident than in the U.S. government’s pursuit of Liberian war criminals, whose violence threatens to tarnish the bicentennial of the arrival of the first free Black Americans to Providence Island, Liberia.
Last December, following President Joe Biden’s June 3, 2021, statement that “Corruption threatens U.S. national security, economic equity, global anti-poverty and development efforts, and democracy itself,” the administration unveiled the nation’s first-ever Strategy on Countering Corruption.
The strategy is centered on five mutually reinforcing pillars of work: modernizing and coordinating government efforts to fight corruption; curbing illicit finance; holding corrupt actors accountable; preserving and strengthening the multilateral anti-corruption architecture; and improving diplomatic engagement and leveraging foreign assistance resources to advance policy goals.
Among the fruits of the new strategy is the forthcoming extradition according to the United States of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez to face drug trafficking charges.
The Biden administration has also imposed sanctions on Russian president Vladimir Putin and dozens of sitting Duma deputies and Kremlin cronies for their roles in Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine.
Urey is listed as an economic crime in the TRC final report.
It can also be recalled Urey was listed as a Specially Designated National (SDN) by the Treasury until 2015 for his involvement in money laundering and illegal arms trading.
In 2009, a leaked cable penned by then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice noted, “Benoni Urey continues to pose an ongoing threat to the peace and stability in Liberia and the sub-region. Urey was the Commissioner of Maritime Affairs for former Liberian President Charles Taylor and was known to play a key role in arms procurement.”
In 2016, reports also circulated that Urey was denied a U.S. visa in an embarrassing incident at the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia, Liberia.
Benoni Urey has long played a complex game in his effort to evade accountability for his wartime actions. He spearheaded dubious legal charges against his political opponents in an effort to maneuver himself back into a position of power and disingenuously declared his support for a Liberian war crimes court, the reporter added.
Last year, Newsweek wrote that Urey is simply hopping “from one bandwagon to the next, hoping it will never reach a real court of international law.”
The arrest of Sekou Kamara who was arrested in the US sends the unmistakable message from Washington: war criminals, no matter how long ago their crimes took place, will face justice for the sake of Liberia’s peace and stability.
The report stated that Urey once declared in defense of his patron Charles Taylor, “Let them free Taylor or carry everyone to jail; we had a war in Liberia and one person did not commit all atrocities. A lot of people did and if one person can face justice, why not the rest?” He should be careful what he wishes for. (courtesy of The National Interest)
