Osman O. Nyei points directly at the area where he alleges his brother Abu Nyei was killed by K1.
BUSHROD ISLAND, Montserrado County – Osman O. Nyei looks sadly at the storefront that now hosts a frozen food importer. It was here, in the last battles of Liberia’s third civil war in August 2003, that Osman says, Laye Sekou Camara, then a general with Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, the rebel group known as “Lurd”, murdered his brother.
By Nemenlah Cyrus Harmon with New Narratives
Mr. Camara, known by his war names of “K1” or “Dragon Master”, goes on trial in January in the US state of Pennsylvania, charged with lying to US immigration authorities when he applied for a visa about his crimes during Liberia’s civil wars. Though Osman’s brother’s murder is not one of the crimes cited by prosecutors in the case, Osman will still become one of a very small number of Liberians who have seen some measure of justice since the wars ended 21 years ago.
He says he is looking forward to it.
“I felt so bad, when he was killed, I felt so bad! Even now I don’t want to hear the name Sekou Camara or K1. I don’t even want to hear it, because each time when I hear his name, I feel bad. It plays on me,” Osman says. “Even though it will not bring the man back, let him face the consequences of what he did, let him feel it. We want justice: he goes to prison for his life time, that’s the justice we want.”
I felt so bad, when he was killed, I felt so bad! Even now I don’t want to hear the name Sekou Camara or K1. I don’t even want to hear it, because each time when I hear his name, I feel bad. It plays on me.” “Even though it will not bring the man back, let him face the consequences of what he did, let him feel it. We want justice: he goes to prison for his life time, that’s the justice we want.
Osman O. Nyei, victim of the civil war
Here in Clara Town K1 is widely known for his lack of mercy for civilians says Osman. “Everybody knows his name because when he meets you, he kills you.”
Osman says his brother Abu, a local Islamic school teacher, with four children, went out that morning, like many other people, looking for food for his hungry family who had been locked down by fighting between Lurd rebels and then-President Charles Taylors’ troops, for weeks.
The door to the food importer store had been broken down and Abu joined people going in to take food. Osman says K1 and his rebels turned up and gunned Abu and others down.
Laye Sekou Camara (far left) watches his troops during the civil war. Photo from the indictment.
“He was a very deadly killer. Even civilians who have no arms, but rather seeking refuge or trying to look for food, when K1 encountered them looting, he killed them,” says Mohammed K. Kiazolu, another resident here. Two of Mr. Kiazolu’s uncles died from mortars that he says were fired by Lurd. “When there is a rumor that K1 is around the Clara Town area, people feel insecure, people feel that anytime they could be killed when K1 is around. So people trembled whenever they heard the name K1.”
People flee attack by Lurd fighters in Monrovia in 2003, Credit: Tim Hetheringon, Long Story Bit by Bit: Liberia Retold
Mr. Kiazolu says K1 murdered 10 people in one day in a massacre that became well known because the victims included a new mother who was the daughter of an immigration officer known as Ma Vie. “The whole of Liberia – and I believe that even America – they are aware that K1 is guilty of crimes against humanity. So I am expecting him to be behind bars for life time imprisonment.”
But unlike Liberian perpetrators Alieu Kosiah and Kunti Kamara who were tried in European courts, Mr. Camara is not currently facing charges of war crimes or crimes against humanity. He is charged with four counts of immigration fraud and faces a maximum sentence of forty years, after which he will likely be deported to Liberia. While European courts have used the principle of “universal jurisdiction” to try a growing number of people with so-called “international crimes”, US Republican party resistance has meant the US has been slow to pass such laws. Only a handful of perpetrators have been charged with international crimes in the US.
Mr. Camara’s trial will follow earlier trials by the same prosecutors in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, of Mohammed Jabbateh, of the Ulimo rebel group, and Tom Woewiyu, right hand man to Charles Taylor during his rebel assault on the country in 1989. Both were convicted of criminal immigration fraud for lying about their war time activities during immigration interviews and on forms.
Jabbateh is serving a 30 year sentence after being found guilty for lying to immigration authorities about his 1993 crimes in Lofa county. Woewiyu was found guilty in 2018 for crimes in several counties in 1990-1994 and was facing 70 years in prison when he died of Covid before sentencing. Mr. Camara was indicted in 2022 and has been held in home detention since. The trial is set to begin on January 21 next year. It is expected to run for three weeks during which a number of Liberian witnesses will travel to Philadelphia to testify before a jury.
Lurd fighters in the streets of Monrovia in 2003. Credit: Tim Hetherington, Long Story Bit by Bit: Liberia Retold
In the indictment prosecutors say Mr. Camara lied in a visa interview with US State Department personnel in Dakar, Senegal in 2012. The indictment quoted a US Country report from 2003 that said Mr. Camara was in Senegal “hiding after he allegedly killed a fellow Lurd general known as Black Marine.”
Mr. Camara will be the fifth Liberian held to account for his or her crimes in Liberia’s civil wars after Kosiah, Jabbateh, Kamara and Woewiyu. “Chuckie” Taylor, Charles’s son, was tried in the US as an American citizen for his crimes in Liberia, and is serving a 97-year sentence.
Several others including Agnes Reeves Taylor of Taylor’s National Patriotic Front, George Boley of Liberia Peace Council and a former legislator, and Moses Thomas of the Armed Forces of Liberia, have all faced criminal, deportation or civil proceedings in international courts. Other cases, against NPFL leaders Saturday Tuah and Martina Johnson, are making their way through European courts. Moses Wright of the Armed Forces of Liberia is awaiting a trial date in the same Pennsylvania court. In a case in Finland against Gibril Massaquoi, a Sierra Leonean accused of fighting on behalf of Taylor in 2001-2003, judges found that while the crimes he was charged with had occurred prosecutors did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Massaquoi committed them.
Camara will be the first commander of the rebel group Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (Lurd) to face trial. Another Lurd leader, Jancuba Fofana, was charged in the UK in 2020, but his case has since languished in UK courts.
Lurd was formed late in Liberia’s 14 years of civil conflict but it quickly became one of the most violent factions. It was accused of committing 12 per cent of all civil war atrocities reported to Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, second only to Taylor’s NPFL, which committed 39 per cent. Lurd’s violent assault on Monrovia in July and August in 2003 helped force Taylor to resign, ending the conflict.
Mr. Camara’s trial is the first international trial to take place since the Liberian Legislature passed a resolution committing to establish War and Economics Crimes courts in May. After a controversial start, a vetting committee appointed Dr. Jallah Barbu to head the office for the courts, this month. Dr. Barbu, in his first press appearance in the role, last Wednesday, told reporters he was hard at work setting up the office and could not give a date for the first trials. But he committed to work diligently to meet the expectations of victims and the country at large.
Justice experts at a two day workshop on war crimes for journalists last week made clear that they were expecting the war crimes courts to try very few of the 116 people recommended for prosecution by the TRC. They said it is likely only the heads of factions would face the court which will try so-called “international crimes” including crimes against humanity like recruitment of child soldiers and systemic rape. But, they said, lower level accused perpetrators like Mr. Camara would face a domestic court on charges under Liberian law.
Osman is one of many Liberians who have expressed support for the courts. “Liberia needs peace and we want for this government to really look into this war crimes court with everything, because this country, people should not come here and killed and go in vain,” he says.
Laye Sekou Camara, in background, during a 2003 press appearance with former US Ambassador to Liberia, John Blaney, caught on a documentary.
Jr. a 52-year-old businessman in Clara Town, says his family lived next door to K1 in the Barrobo community in Clara Town in 1996 when K1 was fighting with the Ulimo K faction.
Jr. does, who not want to give his full name for fear of reprisal, says K1 killed his step mother as she searched for food for the family.
“It’s something my brothers and sisters are grieving about, because the way their mother was killed, they didn’t expect their mother to die like that,” Jr. says. “He needs to go through justice.”
Hassan Bility, executive director of the Global Justice and Research Project, which helped gather evidence used by US prosecutors in the case, said Mr. Camara’s trial will not only bring justice to his victims but, coming at this important stage of the war and economics crimes court, will boost momentum court.
“It important because it’s going to bring justice to victims of the crimes that were committed and two, that Liberia sees this as an inspiration to quickly move to respect to setting up of war and economic crimes court,” Bility says.
New Narratives will provide daily coverage of the trial of Sekou Camara in Front Page Africa, on Facebook Live and on radio partners across the country. For more follow New Narratives and Front Page Africa on Facebook.
This story was a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the Investigating Liberia Project. Funding was provided by the Swedish Embassy in Liberia. The funder had no say in the story’s content.
