MONROVIA – Hassan Bility, a former ULIMO-K operative and co-chair of the ALCOP Youth Wing, has reportedly recruited twenty additional witnesses to provide false, coached testimonies against protected witness Gibrill Massaquoi as part of Bility’s Global Justice Research Project. The witnesses were allegedly promised payment and asylum in return for their testimonies.
Sources suggest that Bility’s Caldwell office has become a hub for recruiting false witnesses. War and Economic Crimes investigators in Washington, D.C., have revealed that Bility is currently under investigation for perjury. Perjury involves knowingly violating an oath by providing false statements or failing to fulfill sworn obligations.
A female investigator familiar with the case has criticized the Global Justice Research Project, led by Bility, as well as Alain Werner, Executive Director of Civitas Maxima in Switzerland, and Carmen Cheun, Director of the Center for Justice and Accountability in California, USA. She questioned the ethics of allowing Bility and his international associates to recruit witnesses for prosecution.
“These institutions should not act as both the accusers and the recruiters of coached, paid witnesses,” the investigator remarked. “The responsibility to recruit witnesses should fall on the prosecution, not on parties tied to the plaintiff.”
The investigator further alleged that the direct involvement of these institutions in witness recruitment has compromised previous cases involving Liberian war crimes suspects, including the Massaquoi case.
Recent reports from Washington, D.C., indicate that investigators have uncovered evidence linking Bility and Werner to the recruitment of coached witnesses in past cases, including one involving Michel DeSadeleer, a dual U.S.-Belgian citizen. DeSadeleer, accused of war crimes, ultimately took his own life after what his family claimed were false allegations initiated by Bility and Werner.
Investigators also highlighted Bility’s alleged involvement in recruiting and coaching fake witnesses in other cases, including those against Jungle Jarba, Moses Thomas, Moses Wright, Martina Johnson, Alieu Kosia, Agnes Taylor Reeves, Isaac Kannah, Kunty K, the late Thomas Woewayu, and the current Massaquoi case. Sources say these witnesses were often placed in foreign hotels with funding from Bility’s NGO, which allegedly ran a witness coaching operation.
In response to these allegations, international human rights groups are calling for the prosecution of both Bility and Werner.
