‘General Dragon Master’ of Liberian Civil War Arrested in U.S.

A person accused of committing atrocities in the course of the Next Liberian Civil War, when he was regarded as “General Dragon Grasp,” has been arrested by federal authorities in Pennsylvania.

Laye Sekou Camara was charged with making use of a fraudulently obtained immigration document, in accordance to a felony criticism submitted in the U.S. District Courtroom for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania past week. When making use of for a non-immigrant visa in 2011, Camara allegedly claimed he had “in no way been a member of or included with a paramilitary unit, vigilante unit, rebel team, guerrilla group or insurgent firm.”

Nonetheless, in accordance to an affidavit from a Section of Homeland Stability (DHS) investigator involved in the criticism, Camara was a major member of the rebel group Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, or LURD, which has been accused of committing atrocities, together with the massacre of civilians, during the 1999-2003 war in Liberia.

“In truth, he was a higher-position member of the LURD rebel group for the duration of Liberia’s Second Civil War,” the investigator stated of Camara, in accordance to a copy of the criticism offered to Newsweek by Seamus Hughes, deputy director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington College.

The grievance cites a 2004 Condition Office report that asserts Camara was also regarded as “Sekou KAMARA” and “K1,” in addition to “Dragon Master.” At the time, Camara was “in hiding right after he allegedly killed a fellow LURD General regarded as Black Maritime,” in accordance to the report.

Soon after allegedly falsely obtaining a visa to enter the nation, Camara later on obtained a green card on the same pretenses, which he went on to use on an application to Pennsylvania’s Division of Transportation in 2017. Camara had been residing in southwest Philadelphia right before his arrest, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Pennsylvania’s Place of work of Legal professional General, DHS, and other federal businesses released an investigation into Camara in July of past year. He was not the very first alleged former Liberian war legal to be investigated on immigration fraud prices.

In 2017, Mohammed Jabbateh, also acknowledged as “Jungle Jabbateh,” was convicted on prices of falsely getting immigration documents. He was a notorious warlord accused of atrocities fully commited in the course of the Initially Liberian Civil War. Jabbateh, who had also been dwelling in Pennsylvania, was later on sentenced to 30 decades in prison.

Liberia’s Very first Civil War, from 1989 to 1997, still left hundreds of hundreds useless, like a substantial amount of civilians. Forces led by Charles Taylor executed the former Liberian President Samuel Doe in 1990, just before likely to wrestle for control of the country in a fight with numerous other rebel groups. The war finished when Taylor was elected Liberian president in 1997.

Rebel teams waging the Next Civil War hoped to clear away Taylor, who resigned from business office in August 2003 just just before a peace settlement finished the war. Taylor was later convicted in intercontinental criminal courtroom of a number of war crimes and sentenced to 50 decades in jail.

Newsweek arrived at out to DHS and the Embassy of Liberia in Washington, D.C., for remark.