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Treason
trial takes a U-turn: Sneaking suspicion at government
- News Analysis
Saturday,
September 08, 2007
By Thomas Kai Toteh
Recent
news reports circulating in the Liberian media about
confessions made by a government’s witness is not
only troubling, but frightening at this time when
Liberians have yet to recover from decades of
political gimmickry, witch hunt, treachery, which in
totality is aimed at eliminating and or cowering
opposition members, and ruling the majority of the
people in fear.
One
year after the bloody overthrow of the True Whig
Party, cronies of President Samuel Doe began falling
apart when they found out that he was a very stubborn
man who could not easily be used. Samuel Doe, in an
effort to hold on to power, arranged for a tutorial
class from one of Africa’s political experts in
preemptive strikes and political intimidation, the
late Amed Sekou Toure of Guinea. Sekou Toure, who
advised the late Samuel Doe that if he wanted to
survive African politics, he must live by the
conspiracy theory/preemptive strike mode, which
includes staging fake coups and fake assassination
attempts.
The
late Samuel Doe’s first test of the African
conspiracy theory method was his vice head of state,
the late Major General Thomas Weh-Sen and five other
top PRC members and Togba Nah Tipoteh, who narrowly
escaped the ploy. Thomas Weh-Sen was in Buchanan,
Grand Bassa County with Invincible Eleven (IE), at the
time when he was hit with the news of his alleged
involvement in a coup plot. He made it back to
Monrovia to disprove the allegations and exonerated
himself. But was found guilty before the trial and was
secretly executed.
The
current Liberian government’s state witness, Col.
Andrew Dorbor takes us back to 1984, when it was also
reported that Moses M.D. Flanzamiton’s allegedly
fired 50 rounds of ammunitions in an early morning
attack on President Samuel Doe at the Executive
Mansion. Flanzamiton was arrested shortly after Doe
announced the assassination attempt. Flanzamiton was
taken to the Ministry of Defense where he confessed
the names of prominent opposition members whom he
referred to as “A group of non democratic
politicians,” as he looked at the paper supposedly
given to him by the government. Flanzamiton’s
confession, though, landed opposition members in
prison, did not go as expected thus reduced Doe’s
government to complete mockery in the capital.
Flanzamiton was publicly executed on the beach at the
Barclay Training Center (BTC).
Thereafter,
there were fake coup plots and assassination attempts
until the so-called 1985 post- election invasion
allegedly led by late Thomas G. Quinwonkpa. The 1985
abortive invasion landed several opposition members
including the incumbent president, political
activists, journalists and human rights activists in
prison and sent others to their graves.
When
news of the latest alleged coup plot broke out many
Liberians and the media greeted it with mixed
feelings. Some political and media analysts, cognizant
of the immediate past political experience in Liberia
and Africa, very quickly began questioning the
credibility of the government’s state witnesses. But
prior to the alleged coup plot, the government of
Liberia embarked on a massive surveillance campaign
targeting a number of
groups including ex-combatants, ex-AFL
commanders and enlisted men, and ex-police officers.
The surveillance was a result of rumors and
speculations around Monrovia that some opposition
members were mustering to stage a coup in Liberia. The
surveillance also was a result of fear and an
atmosphere of suspicion that built up around the
ruling class.
Some
political and media analysts posit that the Ellen
Johnson Sirleaf-Unity Party government is likely
deploying old tactics, which seeks to psychologically
intimidate opposition members and the people. Others
see it as a scheme to prolong UN troops in Liberia due
to government’s inability to put into place a strong
and viable armed forces and security in the country
within the timeframe and, most importantly, the ruling
class may lack confidence in the newly and would-be
recruited elements of the Armed Forces of Liberia and
all members of the security force.
Discovery of arms and ammunitions
In
what appears to be a momentum in the treason trial
took a sharp turn when disagreement occurred within
government circle on possible connection between the
alleged plot and discovery of arms and ammunitions.
Liberian
authorities in July announced they were investigating
a possible coup plot following the discovery of a
large cache of new AK-47 ammunition in a town on the
main road to Côte d'Ivoire. However, police
spokesperson Alvin Jack Kanneh told reporters that it
was too early to say whether the cache was linked to
an alleged scheme to smuggle weapons into Liberia from
Côte d'Ivoire.
Former
Col. Dorbor was arrested by state security near the
Ivorian-Liberian borders after the government of
Liberia received a tip-off from the Ivorian
authorities about an alleged plot to topple the
Johnson-Sirleaf administration.
Accordingly, the accused was then detained and
investigated along with two other suspects including
former Gen. Charles Julu and former Speaker, George
Koukou, who have been formally charged and sent to
court.
Arms
cache announced in Liberia has turned out to be
nothing more than 18 bags of scrapped metal, the
government has admitted. The reported discovery had
raised tension in the central town of Gbarnga, leading
to the deployment of United Nations peacekeepers to
the town. It followed the arrest of a former
army chief and speaker of parliament on treason
charges. Presidential spokesman Cyrus Badio said the
bags had contained some rusty shell casings but it
later turned out to be mostly scrapped metal.
"I guess, based on all the excitement in the air
about subversive activities... security thought
something was afoot," he said. However,
scrapped-metal dealer Papa Mohammed Sheriff, arrested
in connection with the find, was put in custody.
"He is undergoing further investigation. Once it
is determined there is nothing more than scrap, he
will be released," Mr Badio said. The news
of the alleged coup plot and later the arms cache had
shocked Liberians, who hoped that the 2005 election of
President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf had heralded the end
of a 14-year civil war.
Dorbor,
a State witness or victim?
Mr.
Dorbor has since been in the hands of state security,
whom reports say would be used as witness for the
government to help testify against Gen. Julu and Mr.
Koukou, who have been charged with ‘treason’ for
allegedly plotting against the state, but both men
have pleaded not guilty.
They
were two of five people arrested in connection with
the alleged coup, Deputy Information Minister Gabriel
Williams said. Officials said that former Col Andrew
Dorbor, one of the detained men, said during
questioning that Gen Julu had asked him and one other
person to travel to Ivory Coast to smuggle weapons
into the country.
“This
action was not only an affront to the Liberians
judiciary system; it was a complete violation of Mr.
Dorbor's civil and human rights. Who is to say that
Mr. Dorbor was not intimidated, abused, tortured, and
forced to fabricate his subversion claims against
General Julu and others,” T. Dempster Brown asked.
Sitting
in her August Term of Court at the Temple of Justice,
Judge Evelina Quaqua of Criminal Court B, has ordered
the national security apparatus to produce the living
body of former Armed Forces of Liberia Captain Andrew
Dorbor who have been in detention at the National
Security Agency (NSA), since February 2007.
“You're
hereby commanded to produce the living body of Andrew
Dorbor or Abraham Fofana who is detained by you in
your custody or at the NSA,” the Writ of Habeas
Corpus issued by the court read. The court also
wants the NSA to state why the former AFL soldier was
detained for close to eight months without charge.
The
Writ of Habeas Corpus, which was also served the
Inspector General of the Liberian Police (LNP),
Beatrice Sieh and the Minister of National Defense,
Brownie Samukai, is requesting both institutions to
produce Mr. Dorbor in court to make judgment
concerning his prolonged detention without trial.
Judge Quaqua warned further that the state is hereby
ordered to file returns on or before the third day of
September A.D. 2007, but did not say what will happen
if the state failed to comply.
Lawyers representing the legal interest of Mr. Dorbor
who is believed to be in detention at the National
Security Agency (NSA), said the continuous detention
of their client is a violation of Article 21 (F) of
the Liberian Constitution.
The article states that every person arrested or
detained shall be formally charged and prosecuted
before a court of competent jurisdiction within 48
hours, and there shall be no preventive custody.
The lawyers noted that the detention of their client
has caused him (Dorbor), to undergo mental and
psychological torture, which accordingly, is a gross
violation of his rights.
The order by the court for the Liberian government to
produce the living body of Mr. Dorbor is the result of
a petition for the “Writ of habeas Corpus” filed
by lawyers including Cllrs. Elijah Cheapo, Thompson
Jargbah, T. Dempster Brown and Atty. S.L. Lofa
Kenneth, Jr.
"There
is hard evidence that this man was trying to plan a
coup," Information Minister Laurence Bropleh told
the BBC.
The
retired AFL Colonel was said to have substantial
knowledge of the coup plot that was being planned by
former General Charles Julu, former Speaker of the
Interim National Legislative Assembly, George Koukou
and co-conspirators (to be identified).
Though
state prosecutors emphasized that Col. Dorbor actually
signed a document requesting government to placed him
in protective custody for his own safety, when the
Judge of the court inquired whether this was actually
the case, he admitted that the document was brought to
him, though he didn’t write it but was made to sign
it under duress.
Col.
Dorbor then requested the court to give him some time
to explain a synopsis of the entire episode. Col.
Dobor told the Criminal Court he was forced into being
a part of the concocted plan to overthrow the
government of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. He
explained that he had gone to Cote d’Ivoire to visit
his daughter seeking refuge there when both Ivorian
and Liberian security officers approached him.
He
identified the Deputy Director for Operations at the
NSA, Marc Amblah and some Ivorian military personnel
as being those who met him in Cote d’Ivoire and
arrested him from a hotel, under the pretext that he
had gone there to buy arms and ammunition for the
coup. He alleged that he was taken to a military
barracks where he was tortured and beaten and made to
confess names. Col. Dorbor alleged that he was kept in
custody in Cote d’Ivoire for four months before
being brought to Liberia where he was placed in
protective custody, according to the NSA.
He
also alleged that he was given the names of some 31
Liberians to be implicated, including that of former
General Charles Julu and the late Col. Anthony Jerlue,
head of the aggrieved retired AFL soldiers. He said it
was the security officers who gave him the telephone
numbers of those who have been implicated in the coup
plot.
Meanwhile,
after making his revelation to the court, and while
leaving the court, retired Col. Dorbor was formally
arrested and charged with “treason” which means he
is no more a state witness but instead a
co-conspirator with Gen. Charles Julu and George
Koukou.
Following
his arrest, Col. Dorbor, who briefly spoke with
journalists, said after making such startling
revelations he had feared going back to NSA who had
kept him in custody since the beginning of the year.
“Everything
I have explained here is the truth. Government
promised that they would have given me money. They
said the President had promised to give me a package;
they called my wife and other family members that they
would have taken me from this country to anywhere I
had wished to go with my family if I had testified
against Julu and others,” he said.
He
said he made the revelations in court because from
Cote d’Ivoire, they had been telling him to testify
for the government. “Because of the torture and the
beating they did to me in Cote d’Ivoire, I thought
to speak the truth today in court.”
Meanwhile,
Dorbor’s family, according to FrontPageAfrica
September 5, 2007 edition, has registered
disappointment in the Sirleaf administration. “With
this kind of information, the family wonder, how this
government would not accept that it has serious
credibility problems that may lead many to believe
that we may soon be returning to the ugly past when
imprisonment of perceived and imagined enemies was the
order of the day.”
“If
this allegation is true, the government’s
credibility is not only in doubt but is sinking deeper
and deeper into the least expected,” FrontPageAfrica
quoted the family as saying.
The family is calling on all pro- democracy
movements, student groups, interest groups, political
parties and religious groups to seriously engage the
government by conducting independent investigation as
a way of ensuring that no one including the current
government turns the clock back to yesteryears.
Is Tom Woewiyu State Witness too?
FrontPageAfrica
reports that while the Koukou family watches with keen
interest the development involving the Julu trial, the
family continues to doubt the validity of an alleged
coup involving Hon. Koukou in the first place. Sources
from Liberia not yet substantiated have it that the
head of the National Security Agency who is a son of
the President is headed to USA to meet with Tom
Woewiyu to help the Government case against Hon.
Koukou. “We are alarmed by this development and wish
to call on all human rights group to ensure that free,
fair, and speedy trial of Hon. Koukou is held, and
that nothing short of clearing reasonable doubt would
be accepted by the Koukou’s family,”
frontpageafrica quoted the family as saying.
Based
on email exchanges, [New Democrat reports,
August 3, 2007 ] between former Senator Tom
Woewiyu and former Speaker of the transitional
assembly George Koukou, the alleged plot aimed at
toppling the government remains an intricate web of
conspiracy, leaving more questions than providing
answers. The web emerged with a communication exchange
between Mr. Woewiyu and Mr. Koukou, spanning from 29
June to July 6, 2007.
In
the first contact on 29 June, Mr. Koukou’s alleged
email reveals launching another Octopus on Monrovia,
in repeat of the National Patriotic Front of
Liberia’s failed 1992 military offensive to capture
the capital and install Charles Taylor president.
Therefore, the subject of Koukou’s first alleged
email to Woewiyu was: Octopus 2002. “Due to the
failure of Delilah’s (President Ellen Johnson
Sirleaf) government to perform as expected by her
partners, people have become disgruntled and will be
having a dancing contest soon.
There
has been no official reaction from political parties
and human rights watch in the country, but
the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) secretary
general wrote frontpageafrica in reaction to the new
development. In his letter, Mr. Nagbe asserted that
the UP government is violating Liberians’ rights. He
pointed to incident that unfolded at the Criminal
Court B where Mr. Dorbor claimed false confession
under duress. In his letter, Nagbe said the treason
trial revelation exposes the true motives’ of the
Unity Party-led government.
According
to the Inquirer online edition September 6, 2007, the
Information Minister said the Liberian government has
taken exception to comments made in open court Monday
by retired Armed Forces of Liberia Colonel, Andrew
Dorbor that the state intended to use him to lie that
a coup plot was in the making to unseat the
government.
Information
Minister, Lawrence Bropleh, who spoke to the press on
the issue, said the testimonies made by Col. Dorbor
are totally untrue and grossly distorted. Addressing
the press yesterday, Minister Bropleh said during
investigation into the alleged plot, Col. Dorbor made
a voluntary statement that he would have revealed to
the state what surrounds the whole plot, but wanted
protection from the government since some of those
linked to the act would get even with him.
But
to the consternation of the government, when Col.
Dorbor appeared in court Monday in compliance with a
writ of habeas corpus filed by his lawyer after
staying in detention for seven months, he told the
court that he was forced by the state to sign a
document under duress with the understanding that he
should lie concerning the plot.
Meanwhile,
it’s not known who will be the next prime state
witness in the government vs. Koukou- Julue treason
trial. The
government has yet to provide hard evidence it said it
has to prosecute the accused.
Thomas
Kai Toteh is a freelance writer.
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