LIBERIA/ANA
 
Truth Commission concludes President Sirleaf should be barred from 
office
 
Monrovia, 08 July – (ANA) - The Liberian Truth and Reconciliation 
Commission (TRC) included Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf ‘s 
name on a list of people it accused of being “the financiers and 
political leaders of the different warring factions” in Liberia’s 
successive civil wars between 1989 and 2003. Several other members of 
Sirleaf’s parliament have also been mentioned in the report.
The investigating panel also concluded Sirleaf should be barred from 
holding public office for 30 years. The body recommended on Monday that 
Sirleaf be punished for her early support of rebel leader Charles 
Taylor.
 
Although the President had denied ever being a member of the movement 
led by Taylor, but she admitted during a hearing in February she had 
met him several times and had collected funds for him in the 1980s. 
Taylor headed the National Patriotic Front of Liberia in the country’s 
first civil war in 1989.
Unlike Sirleaf who has not yet responded to the report's 
recommendations, others named in the report did. Liberian senator 
Prince Johnson, who the TRC listed along with Taylor as one of eight 
warlords that should be charged with crimes against humanity, branded 
it a "joke."
Taylor, who was president of the West African country between 1997 and 
2003, is currently on trial in The Hague for
his alleged involvement in 
a civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone. (ANA)
 
SL/ANA/08 July 2009 ---