GEORGES GOBET/AFP/Getty
A guy accused of committing atrocities through the 2nd Liberian Civil War, when he was regarded as “Common Dragon Learn,” has been arrested by federal authorities in Pennsylvania.
Laye Sekou Camara was charged with working with a fraudulently obtained immigration doc, according to a legal grievance filed in the U.S. District Court docket for the Jap District of Pennsylvania past 7 days. When making use of for a non-immigrant visa in 2011, Camara allegedly claimed he had “never been a member of or involved with a paramilitary device, vigilante device, rebel team, guerrilla team or insurgent group.”
Even so, in accordance to an affidavit from a Division of Homeland Protection (DHS) investigator bundled in the criticism, Camara was a primary member of the rebel team Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, or LURD, which has been accused of committing atrocities, together with the massacre of civilians, for the duration of the 1999-2003 war in Liberia.
“In actuality, he was a significant-position member of the LURD rebel team all through Liberia’s Second Civil War,” the investigator mentioned of Camara, in accordance to a copy of the complaint provided to Newsweek by Seamus Hughes, deputy director of the System on Extremism at George Washington University.
The grievance cites a 2004 State Section report that asserts Camara was also identified as “Sekou KAMARA” and “K1,” in addition to “Dragon Grasp.” At the time, Camara was “in hiding immediately after he allegedly killed a fellow LURD Common known as Black Marine,” in accordance to the report.
Soon after allegedly falsely getting a visa to enter the place, Camara later on gained a inexperienced card on the very same pretenses, which he went on to use on an software to Pennsylvania’s Section of Transportation in 2017. Camara had been residing in southwest Philadelphia in advance of his arrest, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Pennsylvania’s Workplace of Lawyer General, DHS, and other federal companies introduced an investigation into Camara in July of final year. He was not the initial alleged former Liberian war legal to be investigated on immigration fraud expenses.
In 2017, Mohammed Jabbateh, also identified as “Jungle Jabbateh,” was convicted on expenses of falsely obtaining immigration paperwork. He was a infamous warlord accused of atrocities fully commited during the Very first Liberian Civil War. Jabbateh, who had also been dwelling in Pennsylvania, was later sentenced to 30 a long time in jail.
Liberia’s 1st Civil War, from 1989 to 1997, left hundreds of 1000’s useless, together with a large range of civilians. Forces led by Charles Taylor executed the former Liberian President Samuel Doe in 1990, just before going to struggle for control of the nation in a struggle with a number of other rebel groups. The war ended when Taylor was elected Liberian president in 1997.
Rebel teams waging the Next Civil War hoped to remove Taylor, who resigned from business in August 2003 just before a peace settlement finished the war. Taylor was afterwards convicted in intercontinental legal court docket of many war crimes and sentenced to 50 yrs in prison.
Newsweek attained out to DHS and the Embassy of Liberia in Washington, D.C., for remark.