August 28, 2023 [Finland] Day 58: Gibril Massaquoi’s final word
Witness Abraham Haddad is heard
The defense questions Abraham Haddad
The defense began by asking Abraham Haddad about his background. Haddad testified that he had done his training in Melbourne, Australia. He worked as a sergeant and a detective with the Victoria police for about 25 years. In 2003, he was employed by the UN as an intelligence analyst at the Special Court for Sierra Leone. His supervisor was Wayne Baston, who was at the Special Court for about six months before he left and Haddad took over. Haddad analyzed information brought in by investigators on the RUF, AFRC and CDF. He received handwritten reports, interview notes, graphs and documents. He assisted the prosecutor’s office in managing the information. He also analyzed potential threats and risks to the Special Court as well as how to mitigate them. At the end of his term, he also worked as an investigator, travelling to various countries and taking statements. On the RUF, they collected statements and testimonies that the investigators were taking from the witnesses as well as news reports, for example on the role of foreign mercenaries connected to diamonds. Information relating to the RUF came from inside and outside Sierra Leone, such as from the Gambia and Liberia. Haddad did not conduct any interviews himself related to the RUF.
The witness had not gone to Liberia to conduct interviews on the RUF. He read all the interviews conducted in Liberia and added them to the investigation database, from where they were sent to the parties of the various trials at the Special Court. He could not say exactly how many interviews he had read, he estimated that there had been 50 or 60 in total. His task was to read all the interviews conducted by the Special Court staff. The witnesses in Liberia spoke of things such as diamond deals between the RUF and Charles Taylor, the connection between the RUF and Taylor and Taylor’s role in the conflict in Sierra Leone. These interviews were carried out in Liberia from 2004 until 2007, when he left the Special Court. The work continued after he left. Haddad had also read interviews conducted in Sierra Leone relating to the RUF’s activities in Liberia. These interviews were related to Northern Sierra Leone, they were conducted in Sierra Leone. Liberian witnesses were interviewed in Monrovia. According to Haddad, Gibril Massaquoi’s name did not come up in any of the interviews conducted in Liberia or in Sierra Leone. Gibril Massaquoi’s radio call sign was Gaffa. The pseudonym the Special Court used during his witness protection was Goofy. The names Angel or Angel Gabriel did not come up during the interviews.
Haddad began working for the Special Court in July 2003, he had met Gibril Massaquoi in early 2004. His understanding was that in July 2003, Massaquoi was in a safe house with his children and his wife, under 24-hour surveillance. The access to the safe house was managed by the WVS. The Special Court would not have sent Gibril Massaquoi to Liberia to look for witnesses while he was staying at the safe house. He had not come across anything in the interviews about a witness being reached through him.
Haddad had heard of Background 1, but they had not met personally. He had read one of Background 1’s testimonies in 2004, when it became public. He had not heard of Background 1 testifying that Gibril Massaquoi tortured him. According to Haddad, in his testimony, Background 1 mentioned that he was arrested by the SSS and taken somewhere, where he was tortured by Charles Taylor’s son Chucky and Benjamin Yeaten. The witness stopped working for the Special Court in November 2007.
The prosecution questions Abraham Haddad
The prosecution began by asking Haddad about the interviews he had conducted. The witness explained that there was no official list of questions that they were supposed to ask, they just asked the interviewees where they had been and what they had experienced, with follow-up questions if needed. Two witnesses at a camp in Tripoli, Libya, were asked about the time before Charles Taylor came from the Ivory Coast in December 1989, Foday Sankoh, and the creation of the RUF, and how the war progressed in Sierra Leone and Liberia. He could not say what kind of questions were posed by the investigators in Liberia, they were also trying to get people to tell their story.
Haddad had not asked the interviewees about a village called Kamatahun. He had not directly asked whether they had been in Monrovia during the summer of 2003. He had not discussed events occurring in summer 2003 with them. He could not say whether his colleagues who had interviewed witnesses in Liberia had asked them about Kamatahun or events occurring in summer 2003 in Monrovia. He could not remember a village called Kamatahun, testifying that this village had not come up in the interviews he had read. From the material he had looked at, the radio call sign for Gibril Massaquoi, Gaffa, could have come up when he had been analyzing radio traffic between Monrovia and Sierra Leone. He recalled that one of the investigators had told him that Gaffa was his callsign. Haddad’s task was to analyze the volume of radio traffic, he could not remember its content. The callsign Gaffa came up maybe two to three times in total, when he was analyzing the time period before 2000.
The witness was certain that the testimony from Background 1 that he had read mentioned his torture. He could not tell the date when the torture had allegedly happened, but speculated that it was before 2004. He testified that he would have known if Gibril Massaquoi was sent on a mission to Liberia to look for witnesses by the Special Court before he started working there. He explained that if Gibril Massaquoi had been sent to Liberia, he would have been instantly killed there, and gave examples of Johny Paul Koroma and Sam Bockarie who were killed. He no information about any concrete plans to kill Gibril Massaquoi in Liberia, but he testified that he would bet his life on it.
Haddad explained that he was asked to testify in the current trial by Gibril Massaquoi’s defense lawyers. He had not discussed the matter personally with Gibril Massaquoi in recent months. They had spoken about four to six months prior, when the lower court had acquitted him. Gibril’s lawyer had asked him if he had heard of Angel or Angel Gabriel, he had answered that he had not. Haddad knew that Gibril was placed in a safe house as a protected witness. He never went to visit him and was not aware of the location of the safe house. If somebody wanted to talk to Gibril, they contacted the chief investigator. He assumed that they then contacted the WVS and Saleem Vahidy, who would send someone to bring Gibril to the Special Court by car. Haddad did not know of any details, of how Vahidy or his unit contacted Gibril. He testified that he did not think that Gibril had any legal counsel during this process. When he talked to him, he didn’t have anyone assisting him.
Further questions from the defense
Haddad testified that he was stationed in Freetown when he joined the Special Court in 2003. The RUF did not have a base in Freetown during or after summer 2003. He had never seen or heard of Gibril not being available for a meeting when his presence was requested by the Special Court.
DefendantGibril Massaquoi is heard
The defense questions Gibril Massaquoi
The defense began by asking Gibril Massaquoi whether he had been to Makeni since his evacuation in 2001. He testified that he never went there again, Makeni was the base for Issa Sesay and others, he could not have gone back after their conflict. As for H5’s statement that he was in Vahun in 2001 with Mike Lamin, he responded that he believes H5 has trouble timing the events correctly. He testified that he met H5 in Vahun in late 2000 with the delegation. Mike Lamin was not there, he was in prison in Sierra Leone at the time, from May 2000 to August 2001. Mike Lamin was never a member of the delegation, he was in prison the whole time they were negotiating peace and was arrested after the UN incident in May 2000. He confirmed that none of the other witnesses heard in the present case had mentioned Mike Lamin as a member of the delegation.
Massaquoi testified that he was taken to the first safe house on 10 March 2003 with his family. It was a white building, it had three bedrooms upstairs and one bedroom downstairs. He confirmed that it was the building in the photographs included in the pre-trial investigation report. His family was relocated in April 2004 to a building almost opposite the Special Court. He was told that this was a temporary placement before they could get a more permanent place. The building was a light color, almost yellow. They stayed there until July 2004, when they were taken to the third safe house. The first safe house was located on 7B Pipeline, a side street off Wilkinson Road. The second safe house was on Jomo Kenyatta Road, near the center of Freetown. The third safe house was on Cole Lane in Kington, it was maroon in color. The family was relocated to the fourth safe house in July 2005 after the attack, a few weeks after the attack. This house was on North Horton Street, near the national stadium. The house was off-white, like the walls of the courtroom.
Massaquoi did not know the exact shifts of the guards. He would only know that the shift was changing when the guards would come to check on him and his family upstairs. He could not tell who the next security guard would be, unless the current guard told him. The only safe house where the WVS allowed visitors was the final safe house. He had requested to see his mother and some relatives after his testimony in court. Security would not have allowed visitors that were not authorized by the WVS. Defense 20 had not visited him in a safe house, but at his residence in Thunder Hills. The house was indeed yellow, but not a safe house. He was already cooperating with the Special Court at the time. This was in around November, Defense 20 wanted to discuss issues with teachers in Eastern Sierra Leone and spent the night.
Massaquoi explained that his cell phone was taken away in the safe house. After a few months his phone was given back to him with a new SIM card. Sometimes they called it directly, and he was told that the Office of the Prosecutor wanted to see him and would come to pick him up. Sometimes they called the guard at the safe house who would let him know that the OTP wanted to see him. If he was called directly, the guard was also notified. Usually, they called the guards before they called him. It usually took anywhere from half an hour to two hours before a van was sent to pick him up. The van always had two guards and a driver, and Massaquoi always sat in the middle of the two guards. Massaquoi remembered Z3. He was introduced to Z3 in late 2004, at the Kington safe house. He saw him two to three times a month when he came to guard the house. Z3 also drove him to the hospital once. In the fourth safe house, he drove him to WVS and OTP. Z3 was the driver, not the security guard.
There was no RUF base in Freetown, they only had the RUFP office. Z3 could not have taken him to the RUFP office because they already knew that he was a witness, it had been all over the media. It would have been dangerous for him to go to the RUFP office. Z3 never took him to see his girlfriend. At that time, his only girlfriend was Defense 13. When she was still in Freetown, she was not living in the center but in Tengbeh Town, and she later moved to Guinea. Massaquoi testified that he would have never asked Z3 to take him to see Defense 13. Z3 never drove him without security guards.
Massaquoi further testified that he did not have a lawyer while he was staying at the safe house. There was no one between him and the WVS during their meetings. Defense 01 had lived with him from January 2002 to 10 March 2003. They lived together at Thunder Hills when Defense 01 was studying. Massaquoi did not testify at the RUF trial, but at the AFRC trial, sometime in 2006. Afterwards, it took over a year before his request to meet his family was granted. He met his family in 2008, a few weeks or a month before they came to Finland.
The prosecution questions Gibril Massaquoi
The prosecution began by asking Massaquoi about when he met H5 in Vahun. He could not remember exactly when in 2000 they met. They had travelled to Vahun and the helicopter from Monrovia didn’t come, so they had to sleep in Vahun and left the next day. That was the first time he saw H5 in Vahun. Their trip was related to the work of the RUF’s external delegation. They travelled several times. When they travelled to Monrovia by land, the route went through Voinjama and Kolahun. Massaquoi met Defense 07 once in Voinjama. He could not remember whether they had travelled south from Vahun, along smaller roads, instead of going to Voinjama, testifying that they travelled either by helicopter or by main roads. The prosecution pointed out that he had mentioned in his first statement that the delegation always travelled through the northern main road from Foya to Voinjama and further to Monrovia. There was no mention of going to Vahun. Massaquoi responded that he had in fact mentioned Vahun and that he had travelled from Vahun to Monrovia either by land or by helicopter. He could not remember how many times he had been to Vahun. He could not recall if he had been in Vahun in June 2001. June 2001 was the last time he was in Monrovia. He packed his things and left for Sierra Leone. He could not remember where they crossed the border, as he was sleeping in the car.
The prosecution pointed out that Massaquoi had told the Special Court that he had been to Vahun in June 2001, this statement was included in one of the documents presented by the defense in their written evidence. Massaquoi confirmed the statement, Benjamin Yeaten was based in Vahun. He could not remember a village called Kamatahun Hassala located to the north of Vahun. He could remember Kolahun as they sometimes landed in Kolahun by helicopter and drove to the border from there.
Massaquoi could not recall how many times he travelled with the delegation between Sierra Leone and Liberia. The trips began in August 2000 and ended in February 2001, except when he returned in June 2001 to pick up his things from Monrovia. After every meeting in Liberia, Mali, or Nigeria, he had to go back to brief Issa Sesay and others. He speculated that the trip to Vahun that he had spoken to the Special Court about was from when he used Issa Sesay’s vehicle to go and came back in his own car. He had met Benjamin Yeaten on that trip. Benjamin Yeaten used to give them vehicles and sometimes called the helicopter to pick up the delegation. He arranged the delegation’s security in Monrovia. When asked about whether Benjamin Yeaten had given weapons to the RUF, he said that those who brought weapons were not part of the delegation. When asked about the fact that the delegation was there when Yeaten gave weapons to the RUF, he responded: “I can’t say it was a coincidence because I know that before this moment the RUF leadership had a relationship with Yeaten.”
Massaquoi remembered five guards from when he was taken to the safe house in 2003. He gave their names, including Defense 08 and H6, to the court. He repeated that he could not have known who the next security guard on shift would be, he had no information how the guards planned their shifts. The guards began working at the safe house at the same time he was brought in. At first, two guards would work throughout the day and night. Later, they changed to a shift-based system, with one guard during the day and one during the night. He could not remember when the change in shifts took place. The guards stayed within the fence, by the gate that was locked or in the backyard. The guards had keys to the lock between the upstairs and downstairs area inside the house. The main door to the house was locked and the guards had the key, the family could not leave freely. The children were also locked inside the house, they would sometimes play in the living room or sometimes in their own room. The children could also play in the backyard when the back door was open for cooking.
Finally, Massaquoi testified that a lot of Issa Sesay and Morris Kallon’s bodyguards knew he was working with the Special Court. There were reports in the media that he was working with a special court, his name began appearing in the media from the day the court began arresting people. He used a code name up until his testimony in court, when he stated that he would rather testify openly.
