Opinion ID: 150723
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: 1999 Torture of Sierra Leonean Refugees (Counts Three and Four)

Text: In the late 1990s, Sierra Leoneans fled civil war in their country and crossed into Liberia, where they registered with the United Nations as refugees. Among them were Sulaiman Jusu and Momoh Turay, who had resettled in the northern Liberian town of Voinjama in 1998. On April 21, 1999, armed forces attacked Voinjama. Along with other refugees, Turay and Jusu fled towards Monrovia, Liberia, aboard trucks operated by the World Food Program. Yet, as is recounted in their extensive trial testimony, Turay and Jusu never reached Monrovia. Their difficulties began when the refugee trucks were stopped at the St. Paul River Bridge Checkpoint, only about 150 kilometers by road to the southeast of Voinjama, and in the northern vicinity of the town of Gbarnga. ATU soldiers ordered the Sierra Leonean refugee passengers off the trucks and segregated them by gender. Turay and Jusu were in a group that also included Albert Williams, Foday Conteh, and Abdul Cole. ATU soldiers stripped Turay to his underwear, and then searched and interrogated all of the men. Meanwhile, the refugee truck on which Turay, Jusu, and the others had been traveling left the checkpoint without them. Soon thereafter, the defendant Emmanuel arrived at the checkpoint, shouting and holding a pistol. He confronted the refugees and asked them if they were the rebels who had attacked Voinjama. When none of the detained refugees answered, Emmanuel killed three of them, including Williams, in front of the others; Emmanuel made the three men kneel before him and then shot each of them in the head while telling the other male refugees that they would be next. On Emmanuel's orders, soldiers dragged the bodies away; Jusu and Turay later saw two of the victims' severed heads displayed atop posts at the checkpoint. The refugees, including Jusu, Turay, Conteh, and Cole, were then placed in a small cell at the checkpoint. When they were taken out, ATU soldiers beat them with their guns, bound them tabie styletheir elbows tied so tightly behind their backs as to be touchingand blindfolded them. The refugees were then transferred by van to the Gbarnga Police Station while still bound and only in their underwear. The ATU soldiers continued to beat them during the journey, and Turay was beaten so badly that he defecated on himself. Within two days, Jusu, Turay, Conteh, and Cole were taken to Gbatala Base, about thirty-five kilometers to the southwest of Gbarnga. At Gbatala, Emmanuel ordered ATU soldiers to put the four men into the prison pits. The pits were approximately two-and-a-half feet deep, covered with metal bars and barbed wire, lined with cement, and partially filled with water. Jusu's pit contained a rotting corpse and chin-high water; Turay's pit was filled with water and bones and was so small that it forced him to squat while his hands were tied to the bars covering the hole. ATU soldiers standing guard continually abused the prisoners, stabbing Jusu and Turay with guns, forcing Jusu to eat burning hot cassava stems that had been roasting in a fire, stepping on Turay's hands, which were tied above his head, and dripping molten plastic onto Turay's naked body. Turay testified that Emmanuel told the commander of Gbatala Base to take care of the prisoners if they did not tell the truth about their involvement with the Kamajors, a militia working in Sierra Leone to fight Taylor's regime. On their second night in the Gbatala prison pits, Jusu and Cole escaped but were recaptured. ATU soldiers brought them back to the base after beating them with their guns. Emmanuel burned Turay with a cigarette, beat Jusu and Cole, and ultimately ordered that all the prisoners be taken from the pits. Once assembled, Emmanuel told the prisoners that no one escapes from Gbatala, and ordered his soldiers to kill Cole. When an ATU soldier reached for his gun, Emmanuel stopped him, and ordered that Cole be decapitated instead; with a bucket in place to collect the blood, the soldier then slowly sawed Cole's head off with a three-foot knife while Cole cried, screamed, and begged for his life. Emmanuel ordered that the prisoners be taken back to the pits, admonishing them that if anyone else attempted to escape, Cole's punishment would be theirs as well. After still more beatings, Jusu and Turay were placed in a pit and tied together, by one hand each, to the pit cover. Guards beat them the next day and melted plastic onto their bodies. That night, Jusu and Turay escaped again after being told by another prisoner, whose toes had been cut off, that the ATU planned to kill all of the Sierra Leoneans. But Jusu and Turay were recaptured, and for their attempted escape, they were severely beaten and abused. ATU soldiers burned both men with dripping candles, and the defendant Emmanuel dripped molten plastic all over Jusu's body, including onto his genitals. Emmanuel also stabbed both mens' legsand Turay's headwith a bayonet. The abuse escalated still further when President Taylor sent a message that he wanted to see the prisoners who had escaped. At Taylor's request, Jusu and Turay, along with Conteh, were tabie bound and driven to the president's private compound in Monrovia, known as Whiteflower. Once there, Emmanuel and Gbatala Base commander Compari brought the three prisoners to Taylor and his defense minister, Daniel Chea. Taylor asked the prisoners if they were the rebels who had attacked Voinjama, warning them that if they did not talk, their heads would be cut off and buried in the sand. Chea observed that the men should have been killed at Gbatala Base, but suggested that they could at least be forced to provide information. He proposed that they be interrogated at Barclay Training Center (Barclay), a facility in Monrovia used by Liberia's national army. The defendant Emmanuel and the ATU soldiers then brought Jusu, Turay, and Conteh to Barclay, where they were imprisoned. They could barely walk or even move their hands because their faces and bodies were so severely swollen from the repeated violence they had endured. The stench from their untreated wounds was so strong that the other prisoners in their cell demanded that the guards remove them. In these conditions, Jusu, Turay, and Conteh were held against their will, without ever being charged with any crime, or allowed to see a lawyer, from late April 1999 until May 20, 1999. The three men were released only when the United Nations High Commissioner intervened. Upon their release, Jusu, Turay, and Conteh received medical treatment both at a Monrovia clinic and at a United Nations refugee camp. They were resettled with their families in March 2000 in Sweden.