–Reaffirms Support for War Crimes Prosecution
IPNEWS: Amidst last week propaganda of conviction by a Swiss court of former prosecutor of the United Nations backed War Crimes Court for Sierra Leone, Dr. Alan White, has clarified that reports of his conviction are untrue.
Dr. White in a dispatched, told the authoritative Independent Probe Newspaper that he was shocked to read reports in the Liberian press about his purported conviction in Switzerland without making inquiries.
“The Liberian press has reported that I was convicted of defamation in Switzerland. I have not been notified of any such as action. I am a global defender of human rights and civil rights for victims seeking justice and accountability, including those falsely accused. I will not be intimidated or silenced.”
“I will not stand by silently in the face of credible evidence that witnesses have committed perjury causing innocent people to lose their lives. As credible evidence or exculpatory information is brought to my attention, I will work to get those wrongfully accused exonerated.”
“I will continue to stand for justice and accountability. Justice must be applied equally and in accordance with the rule of law. Efforts to convict and incarcerate innocent people must stop. This deprives victims of peace and justice allowing actual perpetrators to go free. Those RESPONSIBLE for war crimes must be held accountable.”
Recently, there has been mounting calls by several group including the International Justice Group (IJG), one of Liberia’s transitional justice advocacy groups, warning against two other transitional justice organizations, for what the IJG considers their fraudulent pursuit of innocent persons in the dragnets for prosecution.
IJG, headed by former Truth and Reconciliation Commission Chairperson, considers the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA) of California, Civitas Maximas of Switzerland, and its African surrogate, Global Justice Research Project (GJRP) of Liberia as pseudo advocates and should not be given credibility.
But it seems Ambassador Van Shaack, United States Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice, has not been heeding Verdier’s admonition and he is suggesting that the US envoy is in direct support of the “pseudo advocates”.
In a press statement, Jerome Verdier said he was particularly “ashamed that allegations pointing to malpractices and miscarriages of justice within the advocacy community by some pseudo justice advocates have been described by US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice, Ambassador Beth Van Schaack, as ‘unsubstantiated’ allegations that put ‘civil society actors at risk.’”
“These pseudo advocates – Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA) of California, Civitas Maximas of Switzerland, and its African surrogate, Global Justice Research Project (GJRP) of Liberia are groups Ambassador Van Shaack directly supports,” he alleged.
Nearly two years ago in October 2022, he recalled, “we respectfully wrote the Honorable Ambassador to recuse herself from the War Crimes Court for Liberia Process because she was conflicted by her proximity and direct involvement with the operations of these groups and her support for them”.
“The Honorable Ambassador has since failed to conduct any investigation into the allegations against her proxy entities and paid a death ear to these allegations which have, for over two years, been made very public in the Liberian media landscape and elsewhere,” Verdier said.
Says for Ms. Shaack to refer to the allegations made by the International Justice Group and its partners, as “unsubstantiated” in the face of massive public display of the contents of the allegations against these organizations is disingenuous.
“Further, Ambassador Van Schaack is suggesting that Her Office has investigated or commissioned one at her behest against these organizations during which we were credibly invited to ‘substantiate’ our claims, and we failed to do so, thereby leading her to conclude that the allegations are ‘unsubstantiated’”.
According to Verdier “no such investigation was ever conducted.”
He said suggestions from Ambassador Van Shaack that the allegations of fraud and miscarriage of justice against “her surrogates and cronies who manipulated the criminal justice systems in leading western democracies are ‘unsubstantiated allegations’ is a lazy excuse for perpetuation of fraud and a flimsy argument in favor of deliberate compromises of the criminal justice system for material and pecuniary gains, which compounds the dishonest and lying schemes of these fake human rights actors that the Honorable Ambassador supports.”
Verdier says mounting doubts remain about the secret recruiting methods of these “pseudo human rights organizations about how they locate, target and recruit their witnesses, and whether psychosocial services are provided to these alleged victims, before, during and after their testimonies, assuming they were real victims of war trauma”.
“There is no showing of any credible, transparent recruiting process or the methodology employed by these organizations,” he said, adding: “The only evidence that exists out of the dark walls of these fake organizations are those revealed by an insider witness, Darius Tweh, who participated in the evil scheme and publicly narrated how witnesses were recruited and coached to lie and testify to manufactured evidence in keeping with the script provided by Ambassador Van Shaack’s surrogates and collaborators.”
“With the risk of repeating ourselves,” the IJG Executive Director provided a list of few cases instituted by Criminal Justice Institutions based on what he called the misleading and false information presented by these Human Rights Organizations supported by Ambassador Van Schaack.”
Verdier recounted the case where “Laye Camara was falsely accused of war crimes, in New Jersey. Upon investigation, it was realized that because he refused to play to the gimmick of Hassan Bility (GJRP), he was reported to prosecutors who chose to charge him on the bogus affidavits presented by Bility, who, it was discovered, was the very one who recruited Camara into the LURD Rebel Group as a child soldier. The case has been on suspension for two years awaiting ‘more evidence’ demanded by the court to sustain the false charges proffered by the Prosecution founded on the false information provided by these fake advocates.
“Reportedly Bility has submitted false responses on his US Visa documents by lying about his own criminal involvement in committing human rights violations, recruiting child soldiers, his own affiliation with a warring faction, when he served as a rebel leader and as a Youth Wing Leader of The Political Wing of one of the key Warring Factions involved with the Liberian civil war.”
The former TRC Chairperson said spoke of the case wherein “Retired General Moses Wright was falsely accused of war crimes based on unverified testimonies recorded in the annals of the TRC archives; witnesses were recruited to embellish the unverified and uncorroborated testimony in court.
“Working with the Defense, the falsehood was exposed, and the court demanded more information and the prosecution promised the same. Two years later there is no proof that any new information will be forthcoming, as there is none.”
Another case he mentioned has to do with that of Varfley Dolleh who, according to Verdier, was approached in New Jersey.
“To provide false testimony against a war crime suspect. He declined to cooperate because he wouldn’t lie and told them he did not know the suspect. He was threatened with ‘immigration consequences.’ Unmoved by the threats, he refused to cooperate and was placed in immigration withholding and eventually deported to Liberia for committing no crime whatsoever, but simply for refusing to cooperate with a criminal enterprise. He has been indefinitely separated from his family and career potentially ruined.”
Still listing the cases prosecuted by those he called “pseudo advocates”, Verdier mentioned the Agnes Reeves Taylor case. Agnes, former wife of Former President Charles G. Taylor, was accused in Britain, The United Kingdom of war crimes based on salacious and very bizarre details of public execution of former Margibi County Superintendent, Amos Bohn, a close relative of Former First Lady Nancy B Doe.
According to Verdier, this information provided the subtext for a false narrative pitching the NPFL (predominately Gios and Minos) against the Krahn ethnic ruling tribe.
“Fake witnesses were adduced describing the scenarios, military hardware, weaponry, and uniform Mrs. Taylor was alleged to have worn when she killed the alleged victim in Execution Style. The British War Crimes Unit wasn’t convinced and eventually released Mrs. Taylor, the accused person after two years of solitary confinement. It was however uncovered that Mr. Bohn, the allegedly deceased victim, is well and alive, living in the very Great Britain, England.
Verdier continued: “Gibril Massaquoi was tried in Finland on yet another bizarre and widely made-up story that Massaquoi who was a prosecution’s witness in the Sierra Leone Special Court against whom the allegations alleged that while in the protective custody of the UN Peacekeeping Force, be left the protective custody of the Peacekeepers, travelled into Liberia, wage a war and committed very heinous crimes after the commission of which, re returned to the custody of the UN Peacekeepers.
“The missing link in the prosecutor’s tale is that they overlooked or were not aware that Massaquoi
was under protective custody during the times the crimes were alleged to have been committed leaving the Finnish Court to consider them to be liars a lengthy trial which brought the court to Liberia at one point in time.”
