One of Liberia’s most notorious warlords returned home after more than a decade in exile, asking forgiveness on Monday for ”whatever wrong” he may have done.
Prince Johnson, a one-time faction leader turned evangelist and political hopeful, is best-known for the 1990 kidnapping, torture and killing of Liberia’s then-president, Samuel Doe.
A much-circulated video recorded Johnson looking on languidly while his followers carried out Johnson’s order to slice off Doe’s ear.
The episode came at the launch of what became nearly 15 years of bloodletting in Liberia, as Johnson and other rivals battled for power.
Major fighting ended in August when one of Johnson’s leading opponents, warlord-president Charles Taylor, fled into exile in Nigeria. The world’s largest United Nations force is building up to see Liberia into elections within the next two years.
Johnson, who says he became a Christian evangelist during exile in Nigeria, returned late on Sunday. He made no public reference to recent statements that he planned to seeking the presidency or a parliament seat.
”I have asked all Liberians to forgive me for whatever wrong I may have committed; and I equally stand ready to forgive all those who have offended me,” Johnson said on Monday, speaking in downtown Monrovia.
He insisted he was not ”exclusively responsible” for the toppling of Doe’s government, and insisted Doe took his own life.
”Doe committed suicide in custody, we regret the incident, it was not our intention to kill Doe; it was never our intention, so we apologise for that,” Johnson said.
Johnson said he was ready to face a war-crimes court, if it came to that.
Taylor already is indicted by a UN-backed war crimes court in neighbouring Sierra Leone, accusing of backing rebels in that country in a vicious 10-year insurgency.
Johnson said he would love to talk to Taylor in Nigeria, ”but [Taylor] being an indicted criminal wanted by the war crimes tribunals and I being his former archrival, it is not very easy to have access to Taylor’s [telephone] number”. — Sapa-AP