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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
SIERRA LEONE: Court investigates reports that Koroma may be dead
ABIDJAN, 16 June 2003 (IRIN) - The UN-backed Special Court in Sierra Leone said on Monday it was investigating reports that former coup leader Johnny Paul Koroma, who had been indicted for war crimes, may have been killed in Liberia, officials told IRIN.
The court's chief investigator, Alan White, said his office had received unconfirmed reports that Koroma had been killed two weeks ago in the northern Liberian town of Foya Kamala, Lofa County, where he was believed to be training 3,000 fighters for President Charles Taylor. "At this point we cannot confirm the reports," White said.
David Hecht, the Court Spokesman, said an investigation had been launched. "We will do everything to verify the reports as we are responsible for his arrest," Hecht told IRIN by telephone from Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, on Monday.
Liberian Defence Minister Daniel Chea said he was not aware that Koroma, who went underground in January, had been in Liberia. "I heard about it on TV this morning," Chea told IRIN in Ghana, where he is leading a government delegation to peace talks with Liberia's two rebel movements. "I don't know where the Court got its reports from. I have no intention of commenting on such news. I don't believe he was in Liberia," Chea added.
"We have said often that anytime Koroma comes to Liberia he will be arrested and sent back to Sierra Leone. I am shocked to hear that he had died in Liberia," the defence minister said.
International news media quoted Koroma's wife, Makuta Koroma as saying her husband was killed and buried in Lofa County in northwest Liberia by Ziza Maza, a follower of Taylor's security chief, General Benjamin Yeaten, and one Roland Doe. She added that she had contacted the Court, the Sierra Leone government and regional leaders to help return the body.
General Joe Wyle, a senior military adviser to the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Domcracy (LURD) told IRIN at the peace talks in the Ghanaian capital Accra: "Koroma was being used by Taylor in Lofa Country. It's not clear if he was killed by his own men or by LURD."
Koroma came to power in a military coup in 1997 at the height of Sierra Leone's civil war, but was forced out of office by a West African intervention force a year later. Following a peace agreement to end the 10-year conflict, he was elected to parliament in 2002. However, Koroma disappeared in January this year when police linked him to an attack on a military depot in Freetown. According to the Court, he had since been living in Liberia.
Taylor and Koroma are among the nine people so far indicted by the Special Court for bearing the greatest responsibility for atrocities committed during Sierra Leone's 1991-2001 civil war. The Court announced Taylor's indictment on 4 June while he was attending the opening of the Liberian peace talks in Ghana. The Liberian president is accused of fuelling the rebellion in Sierra Leone in return for smuggled diamonds. Last week, Taylor scoffed at the indictment and demanded that it be lifted "for the sake of peace" in Liberia and the sub-region.
Another indictee, Sam Bockarie, a former commander of Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel movement, was killed in Liberia in early May in controversial circumstances.
The government said Bockarie was killed while resisting arrest as he tried to re-enter Liberia from Cote d'Ivoire, where he had been fighting alongside rebels opposed to the government.
But diplomats in Monrovia said Bockarie was killed in the Liberian capital after an arguement with Taylor. The Liberian government delayed several weeks before handing over Bockarie's body to Sierra Leone for a post mortem examination.
Relief workers in Freetown reported on Sunday that a battalion of 600 Liberian soldiers, accompanied by 400 family members, was negotiating to enter Sierra Leone and surrender its weapons. The battalion, led by one General Davidson, was reportedly based in Lofa County. The relief workers said a second battalion of 700 Liberian government soldiers, also accompanied by family members, was apparently preparing to follow Davidson's men across the border.
In Accra, the Liberian defence minister said there had been no major defection of government forces into Sierra Leone. But he admitted that Pro-Taylor fighters crossed the border frequently. "It's not true that there are any mass defections from the government forces. Those who live in the border region do cross from Liberia to Sierra Leone and from Sierra Leone to Liberia very often," Chea told IRIN.
"I would believe that it was people moving across the border and not defectors from a large group of our fighters. It is true that some of our forces go back and forth across the border but when they cross, we ask them to go without their arms," he added.
Theme(s): (IRIN) Conflict
[ENDS]
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