Jurors could begin weighing charges in 'Jungle Jabbah' warlord trial
Should he be convicted, Jabateh, the East Lansdowne resident, faces up to five years in prison for each of the counts of perjury and immigration fraud with which he is charged.
A federal jury could begin deliberating as soon as Tuesday the fate of Mohammed Jabateh, the Delaware County man accused of hiding his alleged past as a Liberian warlord to gain entry into the United States.
Lawyers on both sides are expected to deliver closing arguments Tuesday morning — a day after presenting their final witnesses in the case.
In seven days of testimony, more than 15 government witnesses, many flown in from Liberia, accused Jabateh of committing unfathomable acts of violence, including rape, murder and cannibalism, during the West African nation's first civil war between 1989 and 1996.
The bloody, multi-factioned conflict left more than 250,000 dead and generated dozens of documented reports of wartime atrocities. And yet, Jabateh is only the second person tried anywhere in the world for alleged crimes stemming from conduct during the conflict.
U.S. prosecutors charged him last year with lying on immigration forms he filed to obtain political asylum in 1997 and later permanent residency here.
The verdict could hold even greater weight in his native country where, as the government's final witness said Monday, memories of mass graves, bodies in the streets and senseless acts of violence still resonate years after the conflict.
"There was no respect for human dignity," Gregory Stemm, a Liberian photojournalist, testified . "A lot of people that suffered during the war, they are hoping … hoping that one day justice will prevail."
Jabateh, a 51-year-old East Lansdowne father of three, has never denied his involvement with a faction of the rebel group United Liberation Movement of Liberia (ULIMO) or that he went by the nom de guerre "Jungle Jabbah" during the conflict. But he has consistently maintained that he did not commit any of the wartime acts of which he is accused.
He says he spent much of the war working security at Liberia's executive mansion for the Special Security Service (SSS), that country's equivalent of the U.S. Secret Service.
Prosecutors sought Monday to undercut that story with testimony from Stemm, who covered Liberia's executive mansion during the war.
Stemm told jurors that he first saw Jabateh in Monrovia, Liberia's capital, in 1995 — years after the atrocities the government's other witnesses described. At the time, Stemm said, Jabateh was working as a personal security guard for Alhaji G.V. Kromah, the leader of an ULIMO sect.
"As far as I'm concerned, I don't believe he was in the SSS," Stemm said.
The defense's brief presentation followed, consisting only of 10 of Jabateh's friends and family members lining up shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the jury. In sworn statements, they agreed that they knew Jabateh to be a "peaceful, law-abiding and non-violent person."
None of those defense character witnesses testified from the witness stand or offered any insight on how they came to know Jabateh or his life since arriving in the United States.
Should he be convicted, he faces up to five years in prison for each of the counts of perjury and immigration fraud with which he is charged. U.S. immigration officials have signaled they will seek to deport him no matter the outcome of the case.