Former Liberian warlord Prince Johnson, a key player in the country’s back-to-back civil wars from 1989 to 2003, died Thursday aged 72, officials from his party and the Senate told AFP.
Johnson, who was seen sipping beer in a video as his fighters tortured then president Samuel Doe to death in 1990, went on to become an influential political player in Liberia.
“Senator Johnson was the longest-serving senator,” said Siaffa Jallah, deputy director of press at the Senate.
“Yes, we lost him this morning. He passed away at Hope for Women,” a health clinic, said Wilfred Bangura, a senior official in Prince Johnson’s Movement for Democracy and Reconstruction party.
Dozens of supporters gathered outside his home upon learning of his death, an AFP correspondent saw.
The gruesome killing of Doe plunged Liberia into two civil wars that resulted in the deaths of around 250,000 people and ravaged Liberia’s economy.
Johnson, who hailed from the northern region of Nimba, later became a preacher in an evangelical church where he enjoyed wide popularity.
He was one of eight warlords that a truth and reconciliation committee, set up in 2006, recommended be tried in a special court, but the recommendations were never implemented.
He was also a leading opponent of the creation of a tribunal to try civil war-related crimes.
He had appeared to drop that opposition in April when he backed a parliamentary resolution in favour of the tribunal.
But he quickly backtracked, claiming that creating such a court was “looking for trouble for the country”.
Johnson was a key militia leader during the civil war, initially allying with Charles Taylor, the future president of Liberia who was later convicted of crimes against humanity.
He eventually broke with Taylor and was forced into exile in Nigeria, where he remained for 12 years.
– Influential –
A father of 12, Johnson returned to Liberia in 2004 with a message of peace and reconciliation, though he never expressed regret over his past actions.
“I cannot be sued. I have done nothing criminal… I fought to defend my country, my people, who were led to the slaughterhouse as if they were chickens and goats, by the Doe regime,” Johnson said while running for president in 2011, when he finished third with 11.4 percent of the votes.
“There are circumstances that change people, that regenerate them… I have changed, my action proves it. See the enormous support I have in the country.”
In the 2017 presidential election, Johnson created a surprise by scoring above eight percent in the first round.
He then rallied behind the former football legend George Weah, who became president after winning a second round face-off against Joseph Boakai.
But in the 2023 presidential election, Johnson backed Boakai, and successfully negotiated a position as vice president for Jeremiah Koung, a relative.
Boakai won that election with 50.6 percent.
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