January 17, 2023 [Finland] Day 4: Expert statements
Expert witness Ilmari Käihkö’s expert reports are presented
The Prosecution discusses the first expert report
The Turku Court of Appeal spent the fourth trial day by examining the two expert reports drafted by Mr Ilmari Käihkö during the lower court proceedings. Mr Käihkö is a Finnish expert on the Liberian civil wars, who had spent considerable time in Liberia talking to former fighters and people who had experienced the war. As both parties had named these reports as written evidence, both the Prosecution and Defense got to present their views on the content.
The prosecution began their presentation by focusing on the first expert opinion Mr Käihkö had drafted in May 2021, when the first instance proceedings were ongoing. The defense had asked Mr Käihkö questions relating to the fighting in Monrovia between the Liberian government troops and the rebel group LURD, such as the geographical locations and timing of the fighting. According to Mr Käihkö, LURD fought in Monrovia three times in the summer of 2003 and these separate battles are locally called World Wars I, II and III. World War III is sometimes referred to as the Siege of Monrovia, which led to the end of civil war, when President Charles Taylor left the country and relinquished his power. According to the prosecution, this matches multiple witness testimonies, where witnesses describe looting in Waterside, Monrovia due to the terrible food scarcity caused by the fighting.
The prosecution presented Mr Käihkö’s answers to other questions by the defence in his expert opinion, that relate to events in Lofa county, Liberia. Mr Käihkö stated that despite the lack of historical sources available, he tried to explain to the best of his abilities the events that led to the fighting in Lofa county. According to Mr Käihkö, LURD initially attacked Liberia from the Guinean side of the border in 1999, with fighting ensuing in Lofa county for a few years. Government forces, supported by the RUF from Sierra Leone, managed to occasionally push LURD back to the Guinean border. However, LURD eventually made its way south towards Monrovia in 2003.
During the first instance proceedings – and presented again at the Court of Appeal -, Mr Käihkö was asked by the prosecution if he was aware of any written historical sources of looting in Waterside during the three World Wars, to which Käihkö had answered negatively. He provided his guess that these looting events might have increased in 2003 due to the fighting, as LURD had captured Freeport in Monrovia and the food storages located in the port. Mr Käihkö also noted that the historical accounts on the conflict are generally very poor, and that violence directed at the civilian population remains largely unrecorded. According to him, the current written historical accounts lack a large number of battles and violent incidents that might have taken place during the conflict all over the country.
The defense offers their view on the first expert report
After the prosecution, it was defense’s turn to offer their understanding of Mr Käihkö’s first expert report. It was originally the defense who had originally located the expert and drafted the main questions presented to him.
Much like the prosecution, the defense also focused on the timing of the battles in Monrovia as described by Mr Käihkö. According to the defense, before the expert was consulted, the prosecution had introduced the idea that LURD would have been fighting in Monrovia prior to 2003; however, the expert report clearly stated that these battles only took place in 2003. Mr. Käihkö also clarified that there were no anti-government troops fighting in Monrovia between 1999 and 2003 other than LURD. The defense also stated that witnesses changed the timing of the events in Monrovia in their testimonies after the expert report had been provided to the Court.
Both the prosecution and the defense presented similar aspects when it came to the expert report of the events in Lofa.
Defense presents Mr Käihkö’s second expert report
After discussing Mr Käihkö’s first expert report, the defense presented the second expert report and their thoughts on its content. According to the defense, a claim was made during the lower court proceedings that Mr Massaquoi could have travelled back and forth between Sierra Leone and Liberia during spring or summer 2003 with a governmental motorcade. Because of this claim, the defense decided to pose additional questions to Mr. Käihkö, who provided his answers in his second expert report. Mr Käihkö stated that it would have been highly unlikely that a governmental motorcade could have made it from Lofa (border with Sierra Leone) to Monrovia.
Prosecution discusses Käihkö’s second expert report
According to the prosecution, the second report was requested because of some witnesses testified that they had travelled from Sierra Leone to Monrovia on cars in 2003. The prosecution noted that Mr Käihkö had not considered the possibility of using secondary routes in his report: he had only referred to the main roads going from Lofa county to Monrovia.
Expert witness Julia Korkman’s expert report is presented
Prosecution presents their views of Korkman’s report
After Mr Käihkö’s report, the Court turned to Julia Korkman’s expert report on the credibility of memories and witness testimonies, which had also been submitted during the lower court proceedings. As both parties again wanted to refer to the report in their evidence, the prosecution began with their findings. According to the prosecution, the report was requested from Ms. Korkman when some of the witness testimonies had changed considerably if compared to what those witnesses had told the NBI during the pre-trial investigation.
The prosecution also explained that in addition to this report, dated May 2021, it had also requested a new report by an additional expert in the field of forensic psychology to be submitted during the Appeal proceedings, as Ms Korkman’s report does not discuss in length the effects trauma has on memory.
In the report from 2021, Ms Korkman stated that when a person cannot remember everything, they are likely to supplement their memory with interpretations and additions. While discussions with others might disturb or alter one’s personal memories, they can also refresh these memories in a manner that allows to remember things we had not previously remembered. According to the prosecution, this begs the question whether the new memories are true or false. Ms Korkman also mentioned that changes in witness testimony are often associated with dishonesty or unreliability, despite the many possible explanations for changes, such as forgetting certain things, the mixing of memories together and increased understanding of the events after they have happened. Also, external reasons might affect witness testimonies, such as stress, the way interrogations and interviews are conducted as well as the witness’ personal understanding as to which aspects of the testimony are crucial and which are not.
Ms Korkman also raised the issue of different cultures and how they manage information. Individualistic cultures, such as Western cultures, perceive information and experiences in a more detailed and individual manner, while communal cultures, such as African cultures, might view experiences from the community’s more general point-of-view.
Defence presents their views of Ms Korkman’s report
The defense focused first on Ms Korkman’s mention of witnesses discussing with others about the events under examination in court: the possibility of such discussions affecting witness’ memories has to always be taken into account during court proceedings. Ms Korkman also mentioned that recalling a particular memory is always an interpretative action: according to the defence, this does not mean that a person would always intentionally lie or disrupt their memories, but it is a factor that has to be taken into account when evaluating the credibility of witnesses’ memories. The defence mentioned that they do not wish to claim that the witnesses in the case would have been gathered together to intentionally lie in court, but they rather caution that memories might have been strongly affected throughout the years since the events took place.
The defence also emphasized the fact that Ms Korkman had mentioned the effect media coverage may have on witnesses: after the lower court’s first trip to Liberia, the proceedings had been mentioned in international and Liberian press.
Expert witness Helinä Häkkänen’s expert report is presented
The Prosecution presents Ms Häkkänen’s expert report
According to the prosecution, the reason for requesting an additional expert report was that Ms Häkkänen had published an op-ed after the lower court’s judgment, strongly criticising how the lower court handled the complex issue of witness memory and credibility – she was therefore contacted by the NBI in order to deliver a report. While both Ms Häkkänen and Ms Korkman are experts in forensic psychology, the prosecution stated that they did not intend to place the two reports in conflict with each other: rather, the prosecution saw these reports as complementary, as they both emphasize different aspects.
Ms Häkkänen’s report states that Ms Korkman does not give a correct and sufficient picture of the aspects that need to be considered when evaluating oral evidence received by the Court. Ms Häkkänen for example criticised multiple scientific studies Ms Korkman had relied on for their lack of practical applicability or their lack of resemblance to the circumstances at hand in this trial. Ms Häkkänen also cited research that seemed to lead to completely opposite conclusions than those made by Ms Korkman on certain aspects.
In her report, Ms Häkkänen had also criticized the lower court’s manner of evaluating witness testimonies and the changes that had occurred between the pre-trial investigation and lower court hearings. According to Ms Häkkänen, for example, international criminal proceedings at the International Criminal Court and in other international tribunals had demonstrated that changes in witness testimonies should not be considered as decreasing the credibility of the witnesses.
Ms Häkkänen also criticized a precedent set by the Finnish Supreme Court, which guides the evaluation of oral evidence in Finnish courts from a scientific perspective: according to her, this requires the witnesses to conform to a standard of uniformity in their testimonies which is close to impossible to achieve from the point-of-view of forensic psychology.
Defence discusses Ms Häkkänen’s report
The defense began by saying that lawyers could not answer the claims made in the report, and therefore it had asked Ms Korkman to answer the claims made about her previous report. However, the defense also pointed out that Ms Häkkänen had conducted an evaluation of the evidence presented in lower court, despite not being in any position to do so, and that the lower court had not required the witnesses to be “perfect” as the prosecution had claimed in presenting Ms Häkkänen’s report.
The defense criticised the fact that Ms Häkkänen had used her own professional clinical experience with strongly traumatized patients to draw conclusions about the effects of trauma in general, without giving the parties of the trial any chance to evaluate how strong her clinical experience might be. The defence also pointed out that some of the conclusions made by Ms Häkkänen were not supported by the actual witnesses in the case: for example, she had spent some time discussing the effects of sexual violence on witnesses, while according to the defence there is only one witness of such crimes in the present case, who additionally had not behaved the way Ms Häkkänen described. The defence also went over the specific claims Ms Häkkänen had made in her report witness by witness: it concluded by saying that both Ms Häkkänen and Ms Korkman should appear before the court, so that the parties may ask them both questions about their reports.
