The defense and prosecution in the Liberian war crimes trial, being held in the Pirkanmaa District Court in Finland, have named more than 20 additional witnesses in Liberia.
The parties have also presented further documentary evidence as the court plans to hear from these witnesses in Liberia later this fall.
The defendant, Tampere resident Gibril Massaquoi, faces several serious charges including dozens of murders, eight rapes as well as aggravated war crimes and aggravated human rights violations dating back to the early 2000s.
The criminal indictment said Massaquoi ordered the murder, torture and mutilation of civilians and participated in their cannibalization.
Massaquoi held a high-ranking position in Sierra Leone’s rebel group Revolutionary United Front (RUF), which took part in both the Sierra Leonean and Liberian civil wars.
When Sierra Leone’s civil war ended, Massaquoi served as a witness against fellow fighters in a UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone. For this reason he avoided war crimes charges in Sierra Leone and made his way to Finland, where he worked as a cleaner and postman.
Last year, after years of investigating Massaquoi’s possible links to war crimes in Liberia, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) arrested him in a Prisma parking lot.
It can be recalled that the Pirkanmaa District Court spent weeks in Sierra Leone and Liberia hearing more than 70 witnesses identified by the prosecution and defense. The court also heard from foreign and domestic experts and witnesses in Finland.
The court said it would hand down a judgment early next year in the case of a man accused of committing serious war crimes during Liberia’s second civil war. The court was initially scheduled to rule on the case shortly.
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