Summary:
- In the growing dispute between the head of Liberia’s War Crimes Court Office and government officials, Jallah Barbu, the Office’s chief, accused senior officials, including Justice Minister Oswald Tweh, of undermining the process to establish a court, accusing them of funding delays and bureaucratic obstacles.
- Tweh responded that funds have been withheld because the Office has failed to submit a spending plan required by government.
- The dispute spilled into public view as President Joseph Boakai travelled to the United States to receive a peace award even as experts and justice advocates said the dispute threatened to delay the establishment of war crimes and anti-corruption courts.
By Anthony Stephens, senior justice correspondent with New Narratives
A public dispute between Jallah Barbu, the executive director of the Office of the War and Economic Crimes Court of Liberia, and the Oswald Tweh, the justice minister, has cast a cloud over the war crimes court and a national anti-corruption court, prompting a range of justice activists to voice increasing alarm that the long-promised postwar justice may be being derailed.
In a live radio appearance appearance on Okay FM, Barbu renewed longstanding complaints that the Office has been underfunded. In 2025, the Office received $US800,000 of the $US2 million promised by President Joseph Boakai promised in April. The Office has not received any of the $1.2 million in the 2026 national budget.
But unlike previous interviews where Barbu defended the government’s commitment, this time he took the opportunity to lash out at senior officials he accused of of undermining the process, saying “some people” were “protecting some people. Some people, they protecting themselves. Some people, they don’t want this government to get this particular thing to go.”
“The pain that we’re going through, Liberian people, we want to tell you, the trouble we going through. We can’t sleep,” said Barbu speaking in Liberian English, for almost the entirety of the show. “The place I air right now, I only fighting to make sure my people be taking pay. Sometimes I give them 20 percent of their salary. Then, I give them 30 percent. I can beg them every day. I say ‘I beg you, when we get money, we will pay.’ It is rough. We are not supported adequately.”
The Office was created in May 2024 by President Joseph Boakai through an executive order to design the courts, draft legislation, mobilize funding and guide their establishment to try perpetrators accused of heinous human rights abuses and economic crimes during 23 years of conflict that left 250,000 dead and more than a million displaced. Barbu has said repeatedly that the lack of funds were affecting timelines outlined in a roadmap submitted to the president last July. The Office submitted bills designed to establish the courts to the president’s legal adviser last year but the government has not acted on them.
The Office was established as a semi-independent body, with funding routed through the Ministry of State for Presidential Affairs. The latest directive places it under the justice ministry. Barbu said that shift has further delayed access to funds.
Jallah Barbu at a recent meeting of transitional justice stakeholders in which he also talked about funding challenges.
“They tied us to the Ministry of Justice,” he said. “My people walk up and down to get approval… I want to write the president to remove us so we can operate independently.”
At a high-level dialogue in Monrovia organized by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and attended by international donors, Tweh rejected Barbu’s claims and dismissed them as “far-fetched, false and misleading.” He defended the decision to withhold funds.
“The Ministry of Finance and Development Planning withheld disbursement to the Office of the War and Economic Crimes Court because no government compliance spending plan was submitted,” Tweh said. “Working outside the government’s financial and procurement systems was not acceptable and would have undermined proper accounting.”
Barbu has dismissed multiple requests by FrontPage Africa /New Narratives since he assumed the office in 2024, for a detailed breakdown of spending.
Barbu has also faced criticism from some transitional justice experts, including John Stewart, a commissioner of Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, over his failure to run public recruitment processes for leadership roles and his appointment of one staff member that activists said had ties to warlords.
But Stewart was not convinced by the government’s explanation for withholding funds. He is one of many activists who have grown increasingly suspicious of the government’s true commitment to holding the courts.
“If they complain that Dr. Barbu has not followed procedures, is there any evidence of a letter… saying that ‘you have not followed procedures’?” Stewart said in an interview. “It’s all sabotage. It’s deliberate.”
Oswald Tweh, Liberia’s Justice Minister.
In a statement, the Women NGOs Secretariat of Liberia, a leading women’s rights organization, described the situation as an obstruction to justice, calling on President Boakai to intervene.
“No individual or institution, regardless of status, should be allowed to obstruct this process,” the group said.
The Liberia Massacre Survivors Association, one of the largest victims’ and survivors’ groups, has threatened national protests across all 15 counties and put a timeline of May 14. It accused Tweh, Augustine Ngafuan, the minister of Finance and Development Planning, and Sam Stevquoah, the minister of state for presidential affairs, of undermining the courts.
Funding challenges have long plagued the office. In early 2025, leading human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, the Global Justice and Reseach Project and the Civil Society Human Rights Advocacy Platform of Liberia warned in an open letter to Boakai that the Office lacked the “human and financial resources”needed to function effectively.
Barbu said his relationship with Tweh has deteriorated.
“The minister has been avoiding me,” he said. “When I say let’s meet, we can’t meet.”
Barbu said he had circulated the draft bills beyond the Justice Ministry, including to Bushuben Keita, President Boakai’s legal adviser; Samuel Kofi Woods, the national security adviser; Sam Stevquah, minister of state for presidential affairs; and Nathaniel Kwabo, cabinet director. But he said the process had stalled, accusing senior officials of blocking progress toward establishing the courts.
Keita, Stevquah, Kwabo and Daniel Nyankonah, a communications officer at the Finance Ministry, did not respond to requests for comment.
In an emailed statement, Woods’ office rejected the allegations as “false, unfounded, and ill-fated,” adding that Woods, a longtime leading justice advocate who has taken fire in recent years for his role in the Boakai administration, “has consistently supported this process and will not obstruct or undermine it. He paid his dues when newly baptized advocates were taking cover and, in some cases, collaborating with warlords. He advocated for accountability when cowards were betraying the cause. Thus, it is laughable that the same national security advisor will seek to undermine the work to which he has dedicated his life… This is why the disingenuous conspiracy aimed at distorting his record will fall flat on its face.”
Woods also called for “an independent performance evaluation, an audit of the Office of War and Economic Crimes, as well as an investigation into these allegations,” saying it would “help to lay bare the facts” and allow for “punitive measures to be taken where necessary.”
Beyond funding, the legislative path to the courts has hit road blocks. Multiple competing draft bills for the courts — including two bills from Pro-Tempore Nyonblee Karnga-Lawrence of Grand Bassa County, and Joseph Jallah of Lofa County, one from civil society groups led by the Independent National Commission on Human Rights and another from the Liberian National Bar Assocation— are vying to set the rules for the court. The Legislature must agree on one before the courts can be established. Some experts warn that political resistance could slow the process, particularly in a Legislature that includes individuals accused of past abuses.
Some lawmakers who would be involved in the process have themselves faced allegations tied to the civil war. The 2009 Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report accused Thomas Nimely Yaya, the senator from Grand Gedeh County, of war crimes and Edwin Snowe, senator of Bomi County, of economic crimes.
Civilans flee Lurd fighrers on Bushrod Island in 2003. credit: Tim Hetherington.
The courts will will be unlikely to meet projected timelines. The court Office has previously said the anti-corruption court could begin operations in November this year, with the war crimes court was expected to begin operations in November 2027. Both are a long way off with numerous hurdles to overcome.
Tweh said the delays reflect technical challenges rather than a lack of political will.
“Any delays in advancing the bills have not been a reason for a lack of political will at the highest level,” he said. “But for the need for technical review and harmonization of the multiple draft bills.”
He called for broader consultations to resolve differences and finalize the proposals.
“We welcome immediate substantive meetings to finalize a harmonized bill and agree on a transparent funding implementation framework,” said Tweh. The people and victims of Liberia deserve truth, justice and reconciliation.”
The dispute unfolded as President Joseph Boakai received a peace and justice award from the Center for African Peace and Conflict Resolution at California State University, Sacramento over the weekend. The prize underscored the contrast between international expectations for the courts and ongoing challenges of establishing accountability mechanisms at home.
Boakai did not address the dispute directly but highlighted his administration’s efforts on transitional justice, including reburials of former presidents Samuel Doe and William Tolbert and the issuance of a national apology to victims of Liberia’s civil wars. He said his government was “working to establish a war and economic crimes court so that accountability and reconciliation move forward together.”
President Boakai is one of six recipients of the annual award. Credit: Executive Mansion.
Organizers of the 34th annual Africa Peace Awards said Boakai was honored for his commitment to promoting peace, democratic governance and national reconciliation in Liberia. Other recipients included Emem Omokaro, Edward Bush, the Alternative Dispute Resolution Secretariat of The Gambia, Azizza Davis Goines and Butch Ware.
Past recipients have included Desmond Tutu, the late South African anti-apartheid icon, and Adama Dempster, a prominent Liberian human rights advocate.
This story is a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the West Africa Justice Reporting Project. Funding was provided by the Swedish Embassy in Liberia which had no say in the story’s content.
