MONROVIA (AFP) — Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is preparing to indict a raft of former warlords for crimes committed during the country's brutal civil war, said a warlord turned politician who claims to have the commission's confidential report on Monday.
"In the report I am indicted for war crimes for killing (former president) Samuel Doe and committing a massacre in Bong Mines," Prince Johnson, who is now a senator, told a press conference.
He said that there are almost 200 names in the report and all those on the indictment list are former warlords.
"All the former faction leaders are listed," he said.
A spokesman for the commission, which was formed to shed light on war crimes during 14 years of civil conflict that ended in 2003, declined to comment on Johnson's claims.
"We cannot give any comment on our final report before June 22, 2009, because this is a very confidential report," TRC spokesman James Kargoi told AFP.
Set up along the lines of the truth and reconciliation commission in South Africa after the end of apartheid, Liberia's TRC said it would decide after voluntary hearings if it would indict individuals.
The hearings of the commission are still ongoing and are expected to continue until at least mid-February.
Johnson, a rebel leader known for his brutality who videotaped his fighters torturing and killing Liberian president Samuel Doe in 1990, warned that there would be trouble if anyone tried to arrest him.
"We former faction leaders, we revolutionaries, we are for peace in this country. But no one should witch-hunt us; no one should try to arrest me, because there will be resistance," he told journalists.
Some 250,000 people died in civil wars that shook the West African country between 1989 and 2003.
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