A relative of the late President Samuel Kanyon Doe told commissioners of Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that claims of reconciliation between the Doe family and Senator Prince Johnson are bogus.
George Wright, now administrator of the late president's estate told the ongoing TRC hearings at the Monrovia City Hall that reconciliation rites between the Doe family and Johnson in Nigeria were imposed on the family.
"Prince Johnson killed President Doe right here in Liberia, so why can't he reconcile with us here in Liberia but in Nigeria. He committed the act here and not in Nigeria. So if he want to reconcile with the Doe family, it must be done right here in Liberia where he was killed," Wright said.
He said as far the family was concerned there was no reconciliation between they and Mr. Johnson.
The witness said the reconciliatory ceremony in Nigeria was forced upon the family by a Nigerian evangelist and hence they have not reconciled with Mr. Johnson.
Forces of the defunct Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL), led by Mr. Johnson captured and killed President Doe on September 9, 1990. Doe was taken from the Freeport of Monrovia, then under the control of Johnson's forces following a gun battle and detained at the INPFL Caldwell base.
But following the death of the president video footage showed Johnson and his men tortured him while undergoing interrogation. In the footage, the half naked captured president is seen sweating profusely, begging for mercy as one of the rebel commanders sliced one of his ears with a sharp knife.
The TRC was agreed upon in the August 2003 peace agreement and created by the TRC Act of 2005. The TRC was established to "promote national peace, security, unity and reconciliation," and at the same time make it possible to hold perpetrators accountable for gross human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law that occurred in Liberia between January 1979 and October 2003.
