Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi’s government ran a military training camp in Libya in the 1980s that prepared Charles Taylor’s troops to seize power in the West African nation of Liberia, a key witness at Taylor’s war crimes trial testified on Wednesday.
Moses Blah, who served as vice president under Taylor after he came to power in Liberia, is the highest-ranking witness to take the stand against his former boss since his trial began early this year.
Taylor has pleaded not guilty to charges that include murder, rape, torture and enlisting child soldiers during Sierra Leone’s 10-year civil war, which ended in 2002. Prosecutors allege he orchestrated the atrocities from his power base in Liberia’s capital Monrovia.
Blah said he was among about 180 rebels recruited by Taylor and flown to Libya in the late 1980s to undergo months of military training. The fighters learned to use AK-47 assault rifles and surface-to-air missiles at a military camp near Tripoli, he said.
Rebels from countries including Gambia, the Philippines and Sierra Leone were also at the camp, Blah said.
Taylor’s forces entered Liberia late in 1989, triggering a civil war that lasted years and left thousands dead.
After Taylor grabbed power in Liberia, Qaddafi continued to support him, Blah said, sending Taylor’s regime a shipment of crude oil to sell so the proceeds could be used to buy “military hardware.”
Blah was subpoenaed to testify and had originally been slated to give evidence anonymously, but he later decided to speak in open court despite a death threat e-mailed to his family.
In an example of the brutality of the conflict in Liberia Blah said one rebel commander, “had a habit of eating fellow human beings” and that fighters only joined his unit if they were prepared to take part in cannibalism.
Blah said he once visited the commander, Nelxon Gaye at a camp in a rubber plantation and found him roasting human hands. “He did it over a fire and he ate it with boiled cassava.”
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS