On the first day of the return of Finland’s Turku Court of Appeal to Liberia, all two defence witnesses said although an accused former Sierra Leonean warlord was in Liberia in 2001, it was only for “peace talks.”
“Defence 11” and “Defence “13” said Gibril Massaquoi, a former commander of Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front (RUF), “passed through Lofa County” in Liberia’s north, before coming to Monrovia to meet Charles Taylor, the then-Liberian President to plead with him to help end the war in Sierra Leone.
In 2012, the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone convicted and sentenced Taylor to 50 years in jail for fueling the Sierra Leonean war.
