Fugitive Senegalese implicates Sierra Leone government

The fugitive Senegalese arms dealer on a UN travel ban for his alleged arms trafficking in Sierra Leone in the war years has contradicted government account about his being in the country. In an interview with Africa Confidential, Ibrahim Bah aka Ibrahim Baldeh denied government account that they were not aware of his being in the country. Baldeh who was secretly and dramatically flown out of the country on a presidential order despite local and international cries for his trial here, reportedly produced a letter from a senior All People’s Congress (APC) official inviting him into the country in late 2007. He also showed documents indicating he had been working closely with the government of President Ernest Bai Koroma, introduced foreign business executives to ministers, been active as a businessman in his own right and travelled all over the region unhindered. See full report below as published in Africa Confidential Bah reveals official links   Breaking his silence, Ibrahim Bah denies he has blood on his hands and claims to have set up many ventures and worked closely with ministers. In an attempt to clear his name, former warlord Ibrahim Bah has been talking to Africa Confidential by telephone from a secret location. He has contradicted the government’s claim that it was not aware of his presence in Sierra Leone by producing a letter from a senior All People’s Congress (APC) official inviting him into the country in late 2007. Moreover, he has produced other documents that indicate that he has been working closely with the government of President Ernest Bai Koroma, has introduced foreign business executives to ministers, been active as a businessman in his own right and travelled all over the region unhindered.Bah, who is also known as Ibrahima Balde, Ibrahima Bah and General Abraham, was deported from Sierra Leone on 27 July after AC revealed his presence in Freetown in defiance of a United Nations travel ban. President Koroma ordered his expulsion to prevent him from appearing in court to answer charges of assaulting and kidnapping one Tamba Emmanuel in 2000, at the height of the devastating civil war, say sources associated with the case (AC Vol 54 No 15). If the documents Bah has produced are authentic, it seems that the government also deported him to avoid its relationship with him from becoming known. UN BAN Bah’s current whereabouts are unknown, although says he is in Senegal with the full knowledge of the local authorities. They denied being aware of his presence (AC Vol 54 No 17). The UN imposed a travel ban on Bah for his role in dealing in diamonds and guns during the war. It concluded that he was an ally and envoy of both Charles Ghankay Taylor, the Liberian ex-President and warlord now serving 50 years for crimes against humanity, and Foday Sankoh, the bloodthirsty leader of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). Bah only narrowly escaped indictment by the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Yet he claims, convincingly, that his regional business career in West Africa has been unaffected by this and has included dealings with ministers in both of Koroma’s governments. He says he often worked with the Sierra Leone Import and Export Promotion Agency, as well as government ministers, including the Minister of Trade and Industry and the Minister of Transport and Aviation. Richard Konteh, who was Trade Minister and is now Koroma’s Chief of Staff, denied having met Bah but said that as a minister, he met so many people that it was hard to tell (AC Vol 54 No 4). When Bah was asked if he had met Koroma himself, he declined to comment. The government’s repeated insistence that it knew nothing of Bah’s presence until May 2013 is challenged by a letter from the APC Chairman of the northern Tonkolili District, Paul Bangura (AC Vol 54 No 10). In it, Bangura formally invited Bah to Sierra Leone in order to drum up foreign investment. Dated 1 November 2007, the letter makes specific reference to the recent change of leadership and emphasises that ‘we as a government will always welcome you and your group of investors’. Bangura continues, ‘I have no doubt in my mind that if I have a guest like your good self, credible investors will always be coming to Sierra Leone because of your credibility internationally… As chairman of the All People’s Congress Party in Tonkolili District I hereby invite you officially to my country.’ Bangura did not respond to our requests for comment. The timing of the letter is significant. On the day it was sent, a former RUF legal advisor and spokesman, Omrie Golley, an associate of Bah’s, was released from the maximum security prison in Freetown, along with another suspected RUF fighter, David Kai Tongi. The government of then President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, of the Sierra Leone People’s Party, had detained them on suspicion of ‘subversion’ in early 2006 but they had not yet been tried. It was alleged that they planned to overthrow the government and assassinate Vice-President Solomon Berewa. Golley, a Sierra Leonean-British lawyer, who had himself been subject to a UN travel ban in 2001-02 for his role in the conflict, effusively praised Koroma and the APC for releasing him. The release of the alleged RUF coup-plotters and Bah’s invitation to return to Sierra Leone occurred within weeks of the newly-elected President’s return from Burkina Faso, where Bah was then living. Burkinabè President Blaise Compaoré supported Charles Taylor and the RUF and had been close to its top officers, including Bah. Burkina was the origin of many of the arms shipments to the RUF and Taylor’s militia. Libya’s late Colonel Moammar el Gadaffi, who was close to Compaoré, also supported Taylor’s operations with guns and money.Kai Tongi subsequently went to work for Bah’s gold-exporting company, Ninki Limited, while Golley, an ardent cheerleader of the APC government, collaborated with Bah to bring in a group of South Korean investors, Bah says. He also says he arranged for officials of the Make Holdings Group to visit Sierra Leone, Benin, Ghana, Guinea and Togo. He later fell out with Golley, claiming that he was hijacking the investment programme for ‘personal political ambition’, and proceeded to inform what he describes as ‘high authorities’ in Sierra Leone to ‘be careful with the Koreans’. According to Make Group’s website, its Chairman, James Juhee Han, was made a ‘special envoy’ of President Koroma in June 2008. A month later, Make had secured ‘the sales dealerships of Samsung Electronics’ in Sierra Leone and other West African countries, its website claims. Contacted in South Korea, Han admitted knowing Bah and described him as ‘an old friend’. In January 2013, Make Group signed a series of memoranda of understanding with the Koroma government for projects that are as yet undisclosed. The following month, the pro-government media outlet Awareness Times published a photo of Han and his delegation with Vice President Samuel Sam-Sumana, along with Golley, adding that the Koreans had already met President Koroma. In June, the company announced an investment of almost US$700 million in neighbouring Liberia. In late 2012, Bah was also involved in an infrastructural investment plan to improve transport between Freetown and Lungi International Airport. In a letter dated 4 September 2012, he invited MagForce International, a French company dealing in military and other outdoor equipment, to ‘explore the business opportunities available in the country’, saying he would ‘use the occasion to introduce your delegation to government officials and private sector entities’. A subsequent letter of 24 September from MagForce President Robert Franchitti to the then Trade Minister, Richard Konteh, thanked him for the time granted to the MagForce delegation. INTRODUCTIONS Further correspondence obtained by AC shows that Bah’s investors then met President Koroma at State House on 13 November. By 21 December, the government had signed a memorandum of understanding with MagForce’s partners, China Shipbuilding NDRI [Ninth Design and Research Institute] Engineering Company and the Chinese trading company CEMIT Machinery & Electronics Engineering Company, to implement the project, which is estimated to cost up to $100 mn. When questioned about Bah’s involvement in the project, MagForce’s Managing Director, Catherine Delage, said she did not know anyone of that name. AC was unable to contact the Chinese companies before publication. Although Bah’s claims are self-serving, the records and documents he has produced clearly show that the government’s denial that it knew he was in the country is incorrect. Whether Compaoré recommended him to Koroma’s new government in 2007 or whether he promoted himself to the APC as an investor and businessman, the governing party evidently welcomed him with open arms. Subsequent meetings, introductions and deals show the government’s open involvement with a man who, according to the UN, had played a key role in the devastation of the country in a brutal civil war that was fuelled by blood diamonds. Bah has traded gold and diamonds through his firm, Ninki Group (SL), as well as through its affiliates, Canary Export (SL) and Eurica International (SL). Ninki applied for its first export licence on 1 January 2009. Many of its subsequent dealings were with Italian businessman Vittorio Narciso Ruello. Shipments were sent to the Gold Moving Company, of Piazza del Comune 15, Montefalco, Italy. This describes itself as a watch and jewellery wholesaler.Ruello, whose company profile describes him as an expert in, among other things, offshore registration, marine ecology and ship-brokerage, is President of the Fundación Milnavi, based in Panama, and the Chief Executive Officer of Milnavi Mexico. He eventually fell out with Bah after an ill-fated attempt to establish himself as Honorary Consul of Guinea Bissau in Mexico. Ruello claimed to be close to Carlos Slim, Mexico’s wealthiest man, and that Bah had kept $375,000 of his money (AC Vol 54 No 10).Bah insists he was never notified of any travel ban, though the UN and Interpol issued official notices in 2003. He says he has since travelled freely throughout West Africa. He told AC that since 2003 he had visited five countries: Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea Bissau and Senegal, adding that he travelled openly through international airports, making no effort at concealment and was never given any trouble by immigration officials. Yet Interpol has circulated Bah’s name and aliases to all immigration and police services in Africa. Botswanan officials stopped a different man with the name Ibrahim Bah at Gaberone Airport this year on the strength of the Interpol notice. Bah says he addressed a letter to the UN Security Council in 2005, via the UN Development Programme in Ouagadougou, notifying it of his intention to leave Burkina, as UN investigators, he claims, advised him to do. He says he received no reply. Similarly, after his arrival in Sierra Leone, he says he made no attempt to keep a low profile. ‘I registered my company [Ninki Group (SL)] legally and was paying tax to government,’ he said. ‘I always enter Sierra Leone by air through the Lungi International Airport, my office was 20 metres from a police office, I was paying residence permit regularly, I was meeting government officials openly,’ he said. When, shortly before his deportation, we visited Bah at his home, a two-storey building cut off from the rutted road in front by a high compound wall and situated in the upmarket residential district of Aberdeen, he came across as mild-mannered and personable. He took the opportunity to respond to some of the allegations against him. He admits having fought for some years with Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia rebels but denies charges that he trafficked arms and diamonds. He said that Taylor did not need his help, as he was getting ‘all he needed free’ from Colonel Gadaffi. Bah also denied allegations that he had facilitated gem purchases for Al Qaida operatives in Liberia, as well as claims that he fought with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the mujahideen in Afghanistan and Casamance separatists in his native Senegal. He was open about his military training in Gadaffi’s International Green Army, saying his flair for languages led to him being chosen as a translator. This post enabled him ‘to understand various mentalities and convictions, speak to people of various movements in Africa, Asia and Latin America’. He also denies organising a mercenary force in Freetown. FRIENDLY FODAY One of those he met in Libya was Foday Sankoh, who later became a close confidant. ‘He was a very nice friend,’ recalls Bah of the RUF leader, whose chief military tactics in the civil war included amputation, rape and the widespread use of terrorised and drugged child soldiers. He died from complications after a stroke while awaiting trial at the Special Court for Sierra Leone on 17 counts of crimes against humanity in 2003. Libya is also where Bah first met Taylor, though he denies ever forming a close friendship with the future President. ‘It’s clear that all those who spoke against me were paid for cover up in the conspiracy against me,’ he claimed. Bah depicts himself as a peacemaker and the ‘architect’ of the peace talks in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, and Lomé, Togo, which aimed to put an end to the conflict in Sierra Leone. It is the same defence often invoked by his former business associate, Golley, who travelled with him to the Lomé peace talks in 1999. He proudly displayed a photograph of himself at the talks next to RUF leader Sankoh. In response to accusations against him, Bah also claims that he has already been investigated by many of the world’s top intelligence agencies. The United States Central Intelligence Agency, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, Britain’s MI6 and the French foreign intelligence service all questioned him between 2001 and 2004, as well as the Special Court for Sierra Leone, he says. Bah seems convinced of his own innocence and bemoans the destructive effect of the accusations against him on his family life. ‘I do not commit any crime any way in my life, I never do anything bad to any West African citizen,’ he said. ‘In fact I helped thousands of Sierra Leone citizens, maybe I just helped the wrong people.’ Many in Sierra Leone and Liberia, however, doubt that he helped anyone but himself and may find sympathy for his situation hard to muster. They may also require answers from the government. Culled from Africa Confidential