A prison court in Switzerland has stumbled on Alan White, an American war crimes investigator with a long history of involvement in Liberia’s politics, responsible of defaming two justice activists. The Prison Division of the Jura-Bernois-Seeland regional court of Swiss Canton of Berne agreed with an August 2024 ruling by the Public Prosecutor’s Office that White, an ex-investigator for Sierra Leone’s Special Court, had defamed the reputations of Alain Werner, a Swiss lawyer, and Hassan Bility, his fellow Liberian justice activist.
Werner is the director of Civitas Maxima, the Swiss-basically based justice activists. Bility is the director of Global Justice and Evaluation Mission. The two organizations were in the lend a hand of the prosecutions of 15 Liberian war-connected instances in Europe and the US.
White, who’s basically based in Texas in america, did now not seem in court. He become stumbled on responsible in absentia. He had appealed the prosecutor office’s 2024 ruling. The case stems from a July 2019 electronic mail White despatched to a Swiss lawyer, accusing the pair of making thousands and thousands of euros by pursuing instances against Liberians thru false testimonies. White has made the same claim in forums in america as salvage totally different allies alongside with Jerome Verdier, the worn chair of Liberia’s Fact and Reconciliation Commission.
As he has done with every request Front Page Africa has despatched to him, White did now not reply to requests for comment for this memoir.
Bility well-known the ruling.
“This is a victory of true justice over the attempted commercialization of the pains of the victims of the two Liberian civil wars by lobbyists who had wrongly thought they could lead the Liberian people through a dark tunnel, the end of which only they could see,” said Bility in a WhatsApp text message. “It’s a testament to our independence, professionalism and commitment to justice for our people, the Liberian people. Our commitment to justice has been further strengthened. As a victim of war related crime (torture) myself, I will never allow the commercialization of justice, for such noble goal cannot be exchanged for profit.”
White has long connections to Liberia’s politics and push for accountability for deplorable human rights violations dedicated in the path of the country’s civil wars, which ended nearly 22 years prior to now. An estimated 250,000 folks were killed in the path of the wars, with thousands and thousands displaced. White had a meeting with Joseph Boakai, Liberia’s president, in the path of the early days of his executive in January 2024, whereby his critics said he projected himself as a lead campaigner for a Liberian war crimes court.
The meeting raised eyebrows amongst White’s critics and court’s advocates. US Representative Chris Smith had claimed in the path of a Congressional Hearing in 2024 that White had been acknowledged by the president as “a trusted adviser and has personally requested him to assist in the establishment of the court.” However the assertion become rejected by court advocates.
There become one more controversy entangling White in 2021. Front Page Africa reported that the Liberian Renaissance Office Inc., a firm that White co-owned, had signed a $US180,000 settlement with four Liberian opposition political events for public members of the family capabilities. The events were the All Liberian Occasion of Benoni Urey, a worn ally of convicted war prison and worn president, Charles Taylor; the Cohesion Occasion which become then in opposition; the Different Nationwide Congress of ex-Coca Cola executive, Alexander Cummings, and the Liberty Occasion. It become supposed for the firm to foyer for US increase for the then opposition alliance. Mr. Sylvester Grigsby, Liberia’s recent Minister of Inform for Presidential Affairs, headed the firm.
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The Swiss court’s ruling is most likely the most new in a chain of condemnations against White for his comments against justice advocates. In 2024, he become known as out by Beth Van Schaack, the closing US ambassador for Global Prison Justice, for his “unsubstantiated allegations” against main human rights activists in a Congressional committee hearing in Washington D.C.
“I call on President Boakai to maintain his position on the accountability process being Liberian led. Let this message go forth from here to those who see the process as a means of commerce,” said Mr. Bility. “There’s no room for colonialism in this process. We were the victims, and we (the Liberian people) will lead the process. There’s no middle ground in this one.”
This memoir is a collaboration with Fresh Narratives as piece of the West Africa Justice Reporting Mission. Funding become equipped by the Swedish embassy in Liberia. The donor had no assure in the memoir’s grunt.
