PHILADELPHIA, Pa – It was 28 years since she last saw him. At the time the witness was crying and begging Tom Woewiyu, known then to her as the “Defense Minister” to spare her brother who had been accused of being reconnaissance for ULIMO. He was 17. He had a stutter. There was no way he’d been a rebel of any kind she told the jury.
Report by Tecee Boley and Adrienne Tingba
Her begging did no good. “Take them away,” she recalled Woewiyu saying to his NPFL soldiers of her brother and two other boys whose life was in his hands. “I don’t want to see them.”
With that her brother and the two boys were marched away into the bush. She never saw him again.
The witness, whose name is withheld for her security, was the first witness in the trial of former NPFL leader Charles Taylor’s chief ally Woewiyu to directly say she saw Woewiyu give an order for an execution. Previous witnesses have given graphic evidence of the horrors committed by NPFL soldiers and they have reported seeing him with Charles Taylor and inciting violence against Krahn tribesman on the BBC. But this witness was the first to tell the jury that Woewiyu directly gave an order for a crime.
The circumstances of this meeting were greatly different from that last meeting. This time Woewiyu was in the defendant chair. An elderly man with shaking hands facing 110 years in jail if convicted of the 16 counts of immigration fraud with which he is charged. Still she would not lift her eyes to look at him. She had come a continent away to be in the same space with the man she said had the power of life and death in his hands. The gravity of her testimony gripped the jury.
The defense did not cross examine one witness and only asked a few questions of the second.
The afternoon section of the day saw the playing of audio recordings from interviews Woewiyu had given to the BBC. The tapes were the prosecution’s attempt at underscoring his role as a commander of the NPFL, court monitors observed. He was clearly heard projecting the policies of the NPFL on a platform religiously monitored by Liberians at the time.
“This is the last efforts,” he told Robin Wight in one interview. “When we are done the Liberian people will have something to talk about other than Doe. We have provided opportunities for Doe to get out of there instead of doing that, he sits there. If America can help him, God bless him. If not, we will get him.” Woewiyu told the BBC.
Later when Doe agrees to resign this is deemed unacceptable to Woewiyu. He says the NPFL will continue fighting until Doe leaves. When Prince Johnson’s INPFL forces close in on the Mansion Woewiyu says he will not accept Doe’s exile. The only choice now, he says, is for Doe to be arrested.
Most of the tapes heard in court Thursday focused on Woewiyu and the NPFL’s intent to oust Doe and his government. In later tapes the defendant is heard in discussions with the BBC stating that ECOMOG forces were now the target after the death of Doe. The prosecutors hoped this tape would show the jury that Woewiyu’s goal was not solely to overthrow the Doe government – which he has claimed was illegitimate. Taylor and Woewiyu continued fighting after Doe had died.
The prosecution’s final BBC interview tape in 1993 showed that Woewiyu had been driven by a quest for power. While Taylor is in Ghana for peace talks, Woewiyu seizes the opportunity to take over the leadership of the NPFL, saying Taylor is welcome to come back to Liberia, “but he will not be the leader of the NPFL.”
These tapes marked the close of court proceedings for the week. Next week’s proceedings are expected to bring forth more tapes of Woewiyu’s time as NPFL official spokesman. The court is also expected to hear from more expert witnesses on the Immigration laws of the United States. The court is also expected to hear more of the secret recording made by undercover US agents of Woewiyu negotiating an arms deal in Miami.
The defense is expected to take two days to present its case in the second half of next week. The defense lawyers were overhead saying they had had difficulty getting visas for some witnesses.
This story was produced in collaboration with New Narratives. Civitas Maxima provided funding. The funder had no say in the story’s content.