Author: Prue Clarke

By Eric Opa Doue with New Narratives YARPAH TOWN, River Cess–Betty Miller is a single mother of six children aged six to 13. She is also a farmer, one of many here have struggled to feed and educate their children in the past four years because of poor harvests. Miller says her three oldest children dropped out of school because she could not pay the fees. The three others are in school, from kindergarten to grade three. “I was used to make farm to send the children to school, but now when I make the farm no good thing…

By Nemenlah Cyrus Harmon with New Narratives Myers F. Gibson, chairman of Whein Town community, points to the landfill. WHEIN TOWN, Paynesville City- Last year John F. B. Flumo’s dream of educating the children of this community died. Toxic gases and smoke coming from the neighboring Whein Town landfill had been pouring into the Liberate African Rescue Mission School which he has been operating since 2013 making children and teachers sick. By the start of the 2023 school year he knew he had no choice but to shut down. The school – made up of makeshift classrooms – operated up…

Video by Eric Opa Doue with New Narratives

Kunti Kamara inside a protective glass box as a translator translates to him during his 2022 trial By Evelyn Kpadeh Seagbeh with New Narratives PARIS, France – An appeal court here has upheld the 2022 conviction of Kunti Kamara, a former commander of the Ulimo rebel group, for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Lofa County during Liberia’s first civil war. The court, of three judges and nine jurors, delivered the final verdict Wednesday evening following more than eight hours of deliberations. In the French judicial system the jury needed to have an innate belief in Kamara’s guilt…

By Evelyn Kpadeh Seagbeh with New Narratives PARIS, France – As the appeal of a former commander of the rebel group Ulimo, of his 2022 war crimes conviction enters its final days, defense lawyers for Kunti Kamara called on the three judge panel and nine jurors to overturn the conviction saying there is a lack of evidence Kamara committed the crimes. According to Kamara’s lawyers, his earlier sentence of life imprisonment should not be upheld because the evidence provided by prosecutors and civil parties is largely based on the unreliable testimonies of victims and witnesses from events that happened…

Kosiah testifies in Kamara’s 2022 case. Kamara has asked that his picture not been done by the court artist in the present case. Credit: Leslie Lumeh/New Narratives By Evelyn Kpadeh Seagbeh and Prue Clarke with New Narratives PARIS, France – In a wandering, combative and, at times angry, testimony convicted warlord Alieu Kosiah laid out an argument that he and his former Ulimo ally Kunti Kamara, whose appeal of his 2022 war crimes conviction was the forum for Thursday’s appearance, were innocent. Kosiah was convicted of multiple war crimes in a Swiss court in 2021. His 2023 appeal upheld those…

The Paris Palace of Justice, hosting Kunti Kamara’s appeal of his 2022 war crimes conviction The Paris Palace of Justice, hosting Kunti Kamara’s appeal of his 2022 war crimes conviction By Evelyn Kpadeh Seagbeh and Prue Clarke with New Narratives PARIS, France – Convicted war criminal Kunti Kamara lashed out at the plaintiffs and witnesses who have testified him here in week two of his appeal of his 2022 conviction for crimes against humanity. Kamara, who was convicted of 11 counts of atrocities committed in Lofa County as a commander of the Ulimo rebel group including rape, cannibalism, torture, murder…

PARIS, France – Witnesses from Foya in Lofa County gave the court hearing former rebel leader Kunti Kamara’s appeal of his 2022 war crimes conviction a deeper sense of the terror and chaos that his group, Ulimo, rained down on the town during the rebel group’s occupation in 1993. On Tuesday the court heard that after Ulimo had destroyed the county’s referral hospital, raped and murdered dozens of citizens including chopping open a schoolteacher’s chest with an axe and eating his heart, dozens of men were forced to carry parts of the town’s power station across the border to Guinea.…

PARIS, France – Defense lawyers in the appeal of Kunti Kamara of his 2022 conviction for crimes against humanity, called for the trial to be abandoned on Wednesday. They entered a motion making a new claim that Kamara, a former Ulimo commander, was born four years later than previously claimed, meaning he would have been 15 at the time of the crimes during Liberia’s first civil war, and too young to be tried in France’s adult justice system.

PARIS, France – On day two of Kunti Kamara’s appeal against his 2022 conviction for war crimes and crimes against humanity, Kamara’s lawyers introduced a new line of defense that could upturn proceedings against the former United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (Ulimo) commander.