PHILADELPHIA — A Liberian accused of committing gruesome war crimes when he was a rebel commander called Jungle Jabbah was convicted Wednesday of lying about his past so he could enter the U.S.
Several people from the West African nation went to Philadelphia to speak of their encounters with Mohammed Jabbateh, 51, leading to his conviction on charges of fraud and perjury for lying on immigration forms and to U.S. officials.
Mostly civilian villagers, prosecution witnesses carried with them stories of cannibalism, sexual enslavement and beheadings.
One said Jabbateh sliced a baby from a woman’s stomach and disemboweled the woman. Another recalled that Jabbateh in 1994 ordered his soldiers to kill a town chief whose heart was then boiled and eaten.
“Jabbateh sought to escape to the United States and start anew, where he lied about his extensive and horrific criminal background on federal immigration forms and to the faces of U.S. immigration officers,” acting U.S. Attorney Louis Lappen wrote in a statement. “Jabbateh committed atrocities in Liberia that ravaged communities in ways that will be felt for generations.”
Jabbateh has acknowledged that he was called Jungle Jabbah and disclosed that he was assigned to a security detail for a rebel leader, but he maintained that he never committed the violent acts described in the indictment. He was arrested last year outside Philadelphia.