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

A person accused of committing atrocities all through the 2nd Liberian Civil War, when he was recognised as “Basic Dragon Master,” has been arrested by federal authorities in Pennsylvania.

Laye Sekou Camara was charged with utilizing a fraudulently received immigration document, in accordance to a felony criticism filed in the U.S. District Courtroom for the Jap District of Pennsylvania very last week. Although applying for a non-immigrant visa in 2011, Camara allegedly claimed he experienced “hardly ever been a member of or included with a paramilitary unit, vigilante unit, rebel team, guerrilla group or insurgent firm.”

However, according to an affidavit from a Section of Homeland Protection (DHS) investigator involved in the complaint, Camara was a main member of the rebel team Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, or LURD, which has been accused of committing atrocities, including the massacre of civilians, during the 1999-2003 war in Liberia.

“In simple fact, he was a high-rating member of the LURD rebel group through Liberia’s Next Civil War,” the investigator said of Camara, according to a duplicate of the grievance specified to Newsweek by Seamus Hughes, deputy director of the Plan on Extremism at George Washington College.

The complaint cites a 2004 Point out Section report that asserts Camara was also identified as “Sekou KAMARA” and “K1,” in addition to “Dragon Grasp.” At the time, Camara was “in hiding immediately after he allegedly killed a fellow LURD General identified as Black Maritime,” in accordance to the report.

Following allegedly falsely getting a visa to enter the nation, Camara later on gained a inexperienced card on the similar pretenses, which he went on to use on an software to Pennsylvania’s Section of Transportation in 2017. Camara experienced been residing in southwest Philadelphia ahead of his arrest, in accordance to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Pennsylvania’s Office environment of Lawyer Basic, DHS, and other federal companies released an investigation into Camara in July of past year. He was not the first alleged previous Liberian war criminal to be investigated on immigration fraud expenses.

In 2017, Mohammed Jabbateh, also recognised as “Jungle Jabbateh,” was convicted on fees of falsely getting immigration paperwork. He was a notorious warlord accused of atrocities committed for the duration of the Initially Liberian Civil War. Jabbateh, who had also been dwelling in Pennsylvania, was afterwards sentenced to 30 decades in prison.

Liberia’s Very first Civil War, from 1989 to 1997, remaining hundreds of countless numbers dead, including a huge amount of civilians. Forces led by Charles Taylor executed the former Liberian President Samuel Doe in 1990, before heading to struggle for handle of the place in a struggle with many other rebel teams. The war ended when Taylor was elected Liberian president in 1997.

Rebel groups waging the 2nd Civil War hoped to take out Taylor, who resigned from place of work in August 2003 just prior to a peace arrangement finished the war. Taylor was afterwards convicted in international criminal courtroom of numerous war crimes and sentenced to 50 several years in jail.

Newsweek reached out to DHS and the Embassy of Liberia in Washington, D.C., for comment.