Harper



Ivorian detainees in court May 25 for the judge's decision on their petition of habeus corpus.

 It was sunny the morning of April 1, when Gaye Lulu and 87 other Ivorian men were captured by the Liberian authorities across from the Ivorian border town of Tabou for allegedly possessing live ammunition.

The men have been held since that night in the Harper prison, a dusty compound next to Harper’s City Hall. More than 50 days later, no charges have been lodged against them.

Lulu, 41, said he was seeking refuge in Liberia from the violence of the recent conflict in Ivory Coast. Fighting erupted after incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo refused to cede power to his rival, the recently-inaugurated President Alassane Outtara, following last November’s elections.

The men, traveling in six trucks along with female relatives and children, were dragged out of their vehicles at gunpoint, Lulu said in a recent telephone interview.

The men were ordered into UN vehicles. Lulu said he believed they were being shepherded to a refugee camp.

During a security search after the vehicles crossed the border into Liberia, the men were found with AK-47 bullets and rocket-propelled grenades, according to County Attorney Aloysius Allison. Authorities also found a camera phone whose pictures showed one of the suspects dismantling an RPG, Allison said. The men are assumed to have fought on behalf of Gbagbo.  

After a week, the seven Liberians picked up with the alleged fighters were released.  In an agreement struck with the International Committee of the Red Cross, Allison said the government decided to hold the Ivorians but not charge them until it could be decided whether they qualified as refugees.

Allison said he offered the detainees a waiver promising they would return to Ivory Coast but none would sign. “You will talk to them, they are afraid to go because of persecution,” he said, adding that the majority asked to be released to Grand Gedeh County.

Allison granted reporters permission to interview the detainees but permission was later denied by the prison superintendent who said a new rule prohibited entry without a letter from the Ministry of Justice.

Reporters were allowed to see the grounds, where the detainees stood idly in the sun.

The men have endured “deplorable” conditions within the prison, often going without food and forced to sleep outside, according to a Catholic Peace and Justice Commission report delivered to the county attorney’s office May 24.

Over the past four months, four Liberian inmates of the Harper prison have died of malaria and pneumonia. Two others are currently in the intensive care unit of the local hospital.

The detainees fear that in sleeping in the rain and subsisting on a one-meal-a-day diet of rice in palm oil, they will be the next to fall ill.

“We are really suffering here,” Lulu said.

On May 20, the Maryland County public defender Abraham Sillah filed a petition of habeus corpus – arguing that since the men had not been charged within the 48 hours the Liberian Constitution dictates, they should be set free.

Five days later, Circuit Court Judge Nelson Tokpa ruled that the Ivorian inmates should be freed in 11 days, during which time the government should identify a place to release the men and provide them with medicine, shelter and security.

Liberian and Ivorian authorities are struggling to manage fighters on both sides of the border.  On May 24, Liberian police arrested 12 people alleged to have acted as mercenaries in the recent Ivorian crisis, according to AFP. Ivory Coast is seeking international assistance to reinforce its border with Liberia as a means of halting the return and flow of mercenaries, the wire service reported.