MONROVIA – A witness has told Gibril Massaquou’s appeal hearings in Monrovia that he saw the former commander of Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front ordering the beheading of a teenage girl at Waterside in Monrovia. The hearings are taking place at the RLJ Hotel along the Monrovia-Robertsfield highway because Finland’s Turtu Appeal Court has come to Liberia to witnesses, some of whom are victims of Missisquoi’s alleged crimes, including aggravated murder and aggravated rape during Liberia’s second civil war between 1999 and 2003. Finnish prosecutors are challenging Massaquoi’s 2022 acquittal by the District Court in Tampere.
Now almost 35, the witness said he was 14 when he witnessed the alleged brutal killing in 2003. He said he and his friends had gone to the Waterside market to buy goods when they were captured by Massaquoi and his men. He said the girl, among the captives, was asked by Massaquoi to leave the crowd. He said afterwards, Massaquoi ordered his bodyguards, including one “Bossman”, to kill the girl.
“He called for a stool that had blood stain all on it and made her lay on the stool and he ordered us to watch and see,” said the witness. “He cut the girl’s neck right in front of my eyes. I was scared because it was my first time to witness this.”
The witness told the court after the girl’s beheading, Massaquoi used a remark he’s been infamously associated with in the trial.
“He said when you go to heaven tell God that I, Angel Gabriel sent you.”
Just as it’s done throughout these proceedings, the defence again tried to impeach the witness’s credibility over apparent inconsistency. Paula Sallinen, a defense lawyer reminded him of his testimony to the district court in which he said the incident occurred between 2001 and 2002 and that Massaquoi had ordered the slaying of the throats of two men. But the witness said he was misunderstood by Finnish police who interviewed him about the case, as he only told the lower court that it was a man and a woman whose throats Massaquoi ordered slayed.
Monday’s second witness also claimed she and other civilians, some of whom were her friends, were captured by Massaquoi and his men at Waterside when they had gone there to buy goods.
The witness, who said she was 16 at the time, said they were taken under the bridge and tortured. She alleged the unlucky girls and women were taken to a nearby house and raped.
Asked by prosecutors how she knew people were allegedly taken to the building and raped, the witness said she could tell from the cries.
“People were shouting, crying, and saying we are dying. They are hurting us and raping us.”
The witness said she and her friends, including one Mamie, were saved after a senior Liberian army officer arrived on the scene of the alleged incident and became furious with Massaquoi and ordered him to release all of them.
The defence again tried to raise questions about the witness’s credibility over a prior inconsistent statement. Kaarle Gummerus, a defence lawyer, reminded the witness about her testimony to the District Court in which she said she was accompanied to Waterside in 2002 by a friend only identified as Princess. But she told the appeal hearings that she went to Waterside with Johnson, not Princess.
The third witness, one of the oldest to testify in the ongoing proceedings, said he was also arrested and tortured by Massaquoi and his men when he and his wife had gone shopping at Waterside in 2002. He said he and his wife went separate ways when they heard gun sounds.
“I suffered double pain,” said the witness, 82. “I lost my wife, and they wounded me with the gun on my eyes.”
The witness said he was freed after one of the soldiers who knew him recognized him among the crowd and pleaded with Massaquoi to let him go. As he ended his testimony, the witness challenged the three-judge panel to be fair and transparent in their verdict to “leave a lesson for the future.”
“I am not doing this for anything but for the sake of my grandchildren’s future,” he said. “I am not only a father but a grandfather with 32 grandchildren. Be transparent in everything you do so it can be a great lesson for tomorrow.”
The hearings continue on Tuesday.
