Author: Anthony Stephens

Saturday Tuah was a commander for the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL). Credit: Tuah’s Facebook page MONROVIA, Liberia — French authorities have charged Saturday Tuah, an alleged Liberian warlord with crimes against humanity. Tuah allegedly committed the crimes as a commander for the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), in Liberia’s first civil war between 1989-1996. Although Tuah was initially arrested, he’s been temporarily released. Tuah will make appearances to the authorities when the need arises. Believed to be in his late 50s, Tuah is barred from travelling out of France during this period. His indictment has been celebrated…

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MONROVIA, Liberia—Friday marks twenty years since the official end of Liberia’s brutal civil wars that claimed the lives of estimated 250,000 people. Local and international human rights advocates are holding a conference in Monrovia to commemorate the signing of the Accra Peace Agreement on August 18, 2003. But instead of calling the intervening period “peace” the advocates insist it is only “stability” as long as Liberia does not hold those responsible for the wars to account.

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MONROVIA – It’s a tragedy that has touched almost every Liberian family. With one of the highest death rates from traffic accidents in the world, most Liberians feel a sense of fear when they enter a vehicle. That tragedy arrived for Erica T. Smart in March when her junior brother Lucky was riding from school on a tricycle when he was run over by a defective truck on the Monrovia-Robertsfield highway.

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MONROVIA, Liberia — A Finnish appeal court is returning to Liberia this week after a brief return to Finland, to hear testimony from witnesses for a Sierra Leonean man accused of grave human rights violations in Liberia’s civil war. Finnish prosecutors have accused Gibril Massaquoi, the former leader with the Sierra Leonean rebel group the Revolutionary United Front, of traveling to Liberia to fight on behalf of the RUF’s ally, embattled then-president Charles Taylor.

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KENDEJA, Monrovia – The Liberian hearings in the appeal of a former Revolutionary United Front commander’s acquittal of war crimes charges in Finland, got underway in a Monrovia hotel today. In an exclusive interview Judge Vanne Kimmo conceded the Turku Appeals Court, which has moved to Liberia to hear from 70 (mostly prosecution) witnesses, was facing some challenges with the deaths of three proposed witnesses.

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