George Boley denies war crimes
BATAVIA — Kathryn Boley said she was overcome with a surprising wave of joy when she recently met with her husband at a federal detention center where he is being held on immigration charges.
Clarkson resident George Boley Sr. has long maintained that he is innocent of war crimes in Liberia, despite claims to the contrary by human rights organizations, the U.S. Department of State, and Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Now, facing deportation to his homeland, Boley, 60, may get the chance to answer the accusations in an immigration court in Batavia, Genesee County.
“This is the time when he’s finally going to have his opportunity,” Kathryn Boley said in an interview after a brief hearing for her husband Wednesday in immigration court.
Federal immigration officials claim that Boley does not have legal documentation to be in the United States, and that he is responsible for extrajudicial killings in Liberia. He is being detained at the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia.
Boley, who once failed in a bid to be president of Liberia, founded the Liberia Peace Council, or LPC, during the country’s brutal civil war.
Boley said the LPC’s goal was to bring peace to the fractured country, but activists contend that the LPC, under Boley’s direction, slaughtered innocent people during the 1990s.
In an interview last year with the Democrat and Chronicle, Boley denied the charges and said the country was so chaotic that others who committed atrocities may have claimed they were with the LPC.
And, at Wednesday’s preliminary immigration hearing, Boley’s attorney, Buffalo-based lawyer Allen Farabee, denied Boley was responsible for the crimes alleged by immigration officials.
Farabee also maintains that Boley has the proper documentation to be in the U.S.
The specific charges were not detailed during the hearing, and federal officials declined Wednesday to release the document containing the accusations.
Boley’s son, George Boley Jr. of New York City, said his father was accused in connection with multiple killings. Several of the incidents combined total more than 120 deaths, he said.
Farabee said he may seek political asylum for Boley. But proving that Boley faces dangers in Liberia, a country he has returned to many times in recent years, could be difficult.
Department of Homeland Security counsel Denise Hochul refused to comment after Wednesday’s hearing. She has requested permission to use testimony from Liberian residents via videoconference, a request Farabee plans to oppose.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials this week sent out a news release noting the arrest of a “suspected Liberian warlord,” namely Boley.
The release highlighted a 1995 U.S. State Department human rights report that claimed credible evidence that Boley had seven of his soldiers executed that year.
Boley’s son said Wednesday that his father recommended a military trial for LPC soldiers after evidence surfaced that they committed crimes against civilians. The men were executed after trial, but Boley had nothing to do with that decision, according to Boley’s son.
The news release also cited the claims last year from Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission that the LPC burned alive dozens of people in 1994.
The commission, an advisory group that revisited the atrocities of the civil war, recommended that Boley be prosecuted.
However, no action has been taken to prosecute him in Liberia, according to his family.
Boley, in fact, testified before the commission and buried his father in Liberia late last year.
