IPNews-Monrovia: It’s approximately 18 years since Hasan Bility was last arrested in an apartment on Benson Street, adjacent the famous OK Dry Cleaning.
Bility, a former practicing journalist, was arrested in Monrovia in June 2002 and held incommunicado for almost six months as what the government of Charles Taylor called an “unlawful combatant” and “prisoner of war.”
During his detention, he was interrogated according to him, by former President Taylor himself. He was later charged with ‘espionage and acts of subversion’.
Mr. Taylor-led government was lambasted by Liberians abroad and the international community for gross human rights abuses against Mr. Bility.
In early 2003, he was released from detection after intense pressure from United Embassy officials. Bility won global admiration for his perceived stance against human rights abuses under the Taylor regime.
He narrated that he was tortured repeatedly after the regime accused him of being in communication with LURD rebels, a rebel movement commanded by a member of Bility’s ethnic Mandingo. Sekou Damate Conneh was the head of LURD.
Following mounting calls from international media and rights groups, he was released, and he fled into exile. Bility is currently Director of the Global Justice and Research Project in Liberia, seeking justice for victims of atrocities and abuses committed during the country’s 14 years civil war.
Now, the authoritative Independent Probe has unearthed disgusting accounts about the linkages of rebel affiliation and ill-gotten wealth of the internationally acclaimed human rights fighter.
Documents available to IPNews alleges Mr. Bility’s rebel link with the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO), another rebel movement that was led by another man of Bility’s ethnic group. He has, however, denied his participation with this group.
On two different occasions, callers on local radio talk shows in Monrovia, have accused Bility of being a member of the disbanded rebel movement and Youth Co-Chairman of the opposition political party, All Liberia Coalition Party (ALCOP), Youth wing, which was founded and led by Mr. Alhaji G.V. Kromah, the man who led the Mandingo faction of ULIMO.
The Mandingo tribe waged a counter war against Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) rebels in the early 90s after a break-away faction of Taylor’s rebels – INPFL commanded by now Senator Prince Yormie Johnson, captured President Samuel Kanyon Doe in September 1990 at the Freeport of Monrovia.
One of the radio talkshow callers, had directly charged Bility of being a member of the rebel group. Responding, Bility dissociated himself of being a member of any warring faction; adding: “I think the caller that just called needs to watch his words,” he cautioned.
However, on Thursday, 10 October 2020, while on another talk show hosted by OK FM, Bility was again confronted with the same allegation by a caller.
This time around, he categorically clarified that ‘being member of a rebellious group is not an international crime’. “Let me tell you what constitutes war crimes: If you kill babies, rape women and pillage state resources,” he explained.
Concerns are mounting from critics of Hassan Bility that he is playing a war-like game by mostly pointing out to international disgrace elements that fought his ULIMO rebel-affiliated group, leaving out gross human right violators within the ULIMO rebel movement.
Some notable fierce killers of ULIMO that remain at large and without remorse to mention by the rights advocate Bility are Mohammed Jabbateh aka “Jungle Jabbah” (ULIMO-K since 1994), Kunti Kamara (ULIMO K), Alieu Kosiah (ULIMO K), Alhaji Kromah (ULIMO-K since 1994), General Butt Naked (ULIMO-J since 1994), Raleigh Seekie (ULIMO J), Armah Youlo (ULIMO J), etc.
Gotten Wealth:
An in-depth investigation conducted by IPNews has established incontestable pieces of evidence how the International acclaimed human rights fighter has been erecting huge condominiums in Liberia, from proceeds realized from his so-called human rights violation investigations.
IPNews has established collections of properties owed by Mr. Hassan Bility, in different parts of Liberia, namely Johnsonville, a suburb of Liberia’s Capital Monrovia. The second is his residence in Upper Caldwell, and another currently under construction in Parker Corner, Brewerville.
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