Liberia’s Warlord-turned-senator Prince Johnson Dies at 72

FILE - In this photo taken Wednesday Feb. 17, 2010, Liberian Senator Prince Johnson, gestures during an interview in Monrovia, Liberia. (AP Photo, File)

By MARK M. MENGONFIA

2:49 PM EST, November 28, 2024

MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Prince Johnson, the Liberian former warlord and senator whose brutal tactics shocked the world, has died at the age of 72, authorities said Thursday.

Johnson, who infamously videotaped himself drinking Budweiser as his men cut off the ears of the nation’s former president, remained active in politics after the civil war ended and was elected senator in 2006.

He died on Thursday at a local hospital in Paynesville, a suburb of Monrovia, said Siafa Jallah, deputy director of press relations at the Liberian senate.

Liberia’s civil wars, marked by mass killings, torture and sexual violence, killed an estimated 250,000 people between 1989 and 2003. Johnson was named one of the “most notorious perpetrators” by the country’s post-war truth and reconciliation committee, and was accused of killing, extortion, massacre, torture and rape among other charges.

Neither Johnson nor the other seven people that the committee listed as leaders of warring factions were ever tried in Liberia. But a handful were convicted overseas, including Charles Taylor, a former president, who is serving a 50-year-sentence in the United Kingdom.

Mohammed Jabbateh, a rebel commander who witnesses said sliced a baby out of a pregnant woman’s stomach, killed civilians and ordered his soldiers to rape young girls, was sentenced to 30 years in the U.S.

Earlier this year, President Joseph Boakai signed an executive order to create a long-awaited war crimes court to deliver justice to the civil wars’ victims, but the court hasn’t begun operating.

Adama Dempster, a Liberian human rights advocate, expressed regrets that Johnson was unable to testify before the proposed tribunal before he died. “It’s sad and has a deep meaning for an accountability process,” he said.

In 1990, the then-38-year-old Johnson led a rebel faction that invaded Monrovia, captured former President Samuel Doe and tortured him in front of a rolling camera. Johnson is seen kicking back in a chair, his feet up on a table and a bottle of beer in one hand. He taunts the former ruler as his men strip the president to his underwear then cut off his ears, as blood streams down his temple. The president later died, and according to one witness’ testimony in front of the nation’s truth and reconciliation commission, Johnson later showed off Doe’s head on a platter.

Around the same time, Johnson executed a relief worker wearing a Red Cross bib after accusing him of profiteering from rice sales. An Associated Press photographer who witnessed the scene reported the crumpled victim briefly lifted his head and asked “Why, why?” before Johnson finished him off with a burst of AK-47 fire.

After the end of the war, Johnson became a born-again Christian and ordained preacher, before being elected senator representing Nimba County. The country banned the sale of Doe’s notorious torture tape that had once been widely available at streetside stalls.