–Charged with Immigration Fraud and Perjury

IPNEWS-Monrovia: On November 12, 1985 the then Patriotic Forces under the command of the late Commanding General of the Armed Forces of Liberia, Brigadier General Thomas G. Quiwonkpa invaded Liberia from neighboring Sierra Leone to overthrow what they referred to as “tyrannical regime” of Sergeant Samuel Doe.

Commander-in-Chief Samuel Doe had just won the 1985 elections. Liberians had reconciled themselves to the reality that President Samuel Doe had been overthrown by the ‘lovable’ Gen. Quiwonkpa, who was the good guy and the people’s conscience in Doe’s military junta before both men fell out in 1984 and Doe demoted Quiwonkpa from Army Commanding General to Secretary General of the military government, the People’s Redemption Council (PRC), which Quiwonkpa turned down, forcing Doe to fire him.  Home cocktail parties were being planned. The celebrations had already kicked off in living rooms, porches and backyards.  Another day of redemption had been wrought in Liberia.

The late former AFL Commanding General Thomas G. Quiwonkpa

Quiwonkpa had invaded Liberia from Sierra Leone with Liberian army deserters and rebels as well as with some Sierra Leonean forces allegedly provided by President Joseph Momoh, who had fallen out with his Liberian counterpart, Samuel Doe earlier on. They had seized the radio station and the military barracks (BTC) and Quiwonkpa was announcing at regular intervals that his patriotic forces had invaded Liberia and taken over and that Doe was in hiding but there was no escape for him. He was a friendly and patriotic military officer who was a favorite of the masses. Therefore, thousands poured into the streets to welcome his coup and celebrate the downfall of the hated Doe.

Liberians and foreign nationals watch with breath-catching anxiety on TV, as ministers and government officials who had been arrested being brought to the ELBC radio and TV station in Paynesville.  Some, like the merciless Justice Minister, J. Jenkins Scott, had been badly beaten. Quiwonkpa himself appeared at the radio station walking around, holding a walkie-talkie and saying that he had no grudge for Doe but had been forced by the dictator’s abuse of power to overthrow him. Quiwonkpa said Doe would be put on trial for crimes he committed against Liberians and the country.

But the coup and jubilation lasted only for about 8 hours. Shortly after 2 pm, things went terribly wrong. Col. Moses Wright, who headed the First Infantry Battalion at Camp Schefflein along the Roberts International Airport (RIA) in Margibi County and who was one of Doe’s trusted military officers came on the air at the ELWA Radio and later on at state radio EBLC and shocked everybody by announcing that the coup had failed and Doe was back in power. People were still on the streets dancing, oblivious of the new development. Only those at home watching on TV knew that the coup had been aborted. Doe himself even came briefly on the air to announce that it was not true that he was in hiding and that he was still President and Commander-In-Chief of the army.

Flashback: Some soldiers of the First Infantry Battalion in 1985 during the aborted coup

Doe’s soldiers from Camp Schefflein, it was alleged had the help of Israeli military instructors in aborting the coup. The First Infantry Battalion soldiers under the command of Col. Moses Wright and others from the Executive Mansion Guard Battalion went into the streets to prove that Doe was back in power. When the jubilant crowds saw the soldiers in their army trucks, they thought it was the soldiers who had redeemed them that day, not knowing these were soldiers loyal to Gen. Doe. They were stunned when the soldiers reportedly opened fire on them. Then started the running battle between the soldiers and the crowds that reportedly led to many deaths.  Things had changed dramatically and the soldiers were going around arresting  and in some cases putting to death the coup leaders, soldiers and members of the public who had been earlier seen on TV  rejoicing.  Quiwonkpa fled into hiding. He was caught two days later and publicly executed near his hiding place and dismembered and his mangled body displayed at the Executive Mansion. Other reports have it that Gen. Quiwonkpa had taken pills to commit suicide rather than allowing himself to be caught by Gen. Doe’s soldiers.

In a macabre show of revenge, he was reportedly castrated and his private part hung and displayed on the bonnet of a military jeep that was driven around the city by jubilant pro-Doe soldiers. It was alleged that Quiwonkpa’s body was eaten by soldiers and some members of the public who thought that because he was considered a very powerful man, his powers would be transferred to them.

The failed coup led to monumental reprisals attacks on anti-Doe people and members of the Gio and Mano tribes in Monrovia, other cities and especially in Nimba County where thousands of them were allegedly slaughtered by Doe’s soldiers fueling the resentment and tribal anger that led to the first phase of the Liberian civil war four years later leading to the capture and killing of President Doe by a breakaway faction of a warring faction, the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia led by Field Marshal Prince Y. Johnson. Gen. Johnson was initially part of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia headed by Charles Taylor, when they invaded Liberia on December 24, 1989 from Ivory Coast through Butuo in Nimba County.

After the death of President Doe, some of his trusted kinsmen who were in the Armed Forces of Liberia and other security forces fled the country to different parts of the world for safety. In some instances some of them sought for asylum for fear of their lives that if they returned to Liberia their lives would be in danger, apparently judging from what they allegedly did when serving the army and other security forces in Liberia.

One of such former army top brass who sought refuge outside of Liberia was Brigadier General Moses Wright, former Commanding General of the Armed Forces of Liberia and former commander of the First Infantry Battalion. Gen. Wright sought refuge in the United States where he has resided for years.

Things Turn Out Bad for the former AFL Commanding General

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper and US Prosecutors press release issued on Thursday, June 23, 2022, a 69-year-old Philly man was a notorious Liberian general who lied about his past.

Moses Wright is accused of committing atrocities while leading the Liberian armed forces during a civil war. He’s the latest of several alleged Liberian war criminals to face charges in Philadelphia.

69-year-old Philadelphia man has been charged with immigration fraud for allegedly lying about his background as a military general in Liberia accused of committing atrocities during a civil war there, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.

Moses Slanger Wright was charged with fraudulently attempting to obtain U.S. citizenship, fraud in immigration documents, false statements in relation to naturalization, and perjury in connection with fraudulently attempting to obtain citizenship, U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero said in a statement.

U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero

Federal prosecutors said that Wright in 2000 was granted asylum in the United States and in 2008 obtained lawful permanent residency. Wright applied for U.S. citizenship in 2013, prosecutors said.

Wright is the latest of several Philadelphia-area Liberian immigrants to face federal charges in recent years. U.S. authorities have sought to bring Liberian war criminals to justice — especially in Philadelphia, where thousands of refugees fleeing the conflict were relocated in the 1990s and 2000s.

The indictment alleges that Wright lied about his activities during the First Liberian Civil War, which occurred in the 1990s, as a member of – and then later as the commanding general of – the Armed Forces of Liberia.

Wright is accused of having personally committed or ordering troops under his command to commit numerous atrocities, including the murder of civilian noncombatants.

In 2016, Wright lied about his background and actions in Liberia during an in-person citizenship interview, prosecutors said.

“Wright sought to escape to the United States and start anew, where he lied about his appalling wartime conduct on federal immigration forms and to the faces of U.S. officials. The United States will not be a safe haven for human rights violators and war criminals,” Romero said in a statement.

Former AFL Commanding General Moses Wright – photo courtesy FrontPage Africa

In a similar case earlier this year, another Liberian immigrant living in Philadelphia was arrested by federal authorities and charged with fraudulently hiding his background as a high-ranking member of a rebel group — he called himself “Dragon Master” — that is accused of committing atrocities during the Second Liberian Civil War. In March 2022, Sekou Kamara, allegedly a former LURD (Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy) high ranking commander was arrested in New York. He is accused of allegedly lying to the US immigration authorities on his purported role in the armed group.

In 2018, a federal judge sentenced Mohammed Jabateh, 54, of Lansdowne, to 30 years in prison for hiding his past as a brutal warlord.

That same year, a jury convicted Jucontee Thomas Woewiyu — a past spokesperson for Charles Taylor, a Liberian president later found guilty by an international war-crimes tribunal — for lying to U.S. immigration authorities on his complicity in war crimes committed by Taylor’s regime. He died in 2020 before he could be sentenced.

The late NPFL Defense Spokesman Thomas Woewiyu

Former General Wright is suspected of having lied to U.S. immigration authorities about atrocities he allegedly committed or ordered troops under his command to commit, including but not limited to: persecution of civilian noncombatant Gio and Mano tribesmen, murder of civilian noncombatants, assault of civilian noncombatants, false arrest of civilian noncombatants and false imprisonment of civilian noncombatants.

Former General Wright’s case is the fourth public criminal prosecution in Philadelphia in connection with the Liberian Civil Wars.

If convicted, Moses Wright faces a maximum possible sentence of 165 years in prison and a US$7000,000 fine.

This case was investigated by the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Philadelphia Field Office with assistance from HSI’s Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center in Washington D.C, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, and the United States Embassy in Liberia.

It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Linwood C. Wright, Jr., and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Nelson S.T. Thayer, Jr.

AFL History of Ethnically-targeted Massacres

The disbanded Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) was named as one of the “significant violator groups” by the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), and was found responsible for some of the largest scale massacres of the first Liberian Civil War. These included the St Peter’s Lutheran Church Massacre, in which approximately 600 mostly Gio and Mano civilians were slaughtered while sheltering in the Church; and the JFK Hospital Massacre in which approximately 250 Gios and Manos were slaughtered.

Civitas Maxima and the GJRP have been assisting the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA) in their civil suit in the United States, on behalf of four survivors of the Lutheran Church Massacre, against former Colonel in the AFL and former commander of the SATU (Special Anti-Terrorist Unit), Moses Thomas, for his alleged role in the massacre. Thomas has since returned to Liberia from the U.S., but the proceedings against him have continued in the U.S., and on September 16, 2021, a Pennsylvania court found him liable for the massacre of 600 civilian at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church.

The TRC also specifically named Moses Wright, along with Moses Thomas and others, as having massacred 27 families of Mano and Gio AFL members at the Barclay Training Centre (BTC) barracks in Monrovia, in June 1990.