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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Liberian man convicted of lying about his past as a rebel commander accused of brutal attacks and killings so he could enter the U.S. has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison on Thursday.
Mohammed Jabbateh, 51, was found guilty last October of immigration fraud and perjury for deceiving officials about his role during the Liberian civil war in the 1990s in his asylum application.
Several people from the west African nation came to Philadelphia during the trial last year to speak of their encounters with the man known during the war as Jungle Jabbah.
The mostly civilian villagers brought with them stories of cannibalism, sexual enslavement and beheadings.
One said Jabbateh sliced a baby from a pregnant woman's stomach and strung her intestines up as rope. Another recalled that Jabbateh in 1994 ordered his soldiers to kill a town chief whose heart was then boiled and eaten.
U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond said Thursday those accusations factored into his decision to veer from the federal sentencing guidelines of 15 to 21 months for perjury and fraud.
"I am departing not based on the horror of the atrocities the defendant committed abroad," he said, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. "Rather, I am departing based on the egregiousness of his lies . and their effect on our asylum laws and the immigration system."
When Jabbateh had the opportunity to speak to the judge he said: "Your honor, sir, I have nothing to say."
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. He applied for asylum in 1999 and started a family and a shipping business outside Philadelphia. He was arrested in 2016.
His attorney, Gregory Pagano, said during the trial that prosecutors were "hoodwinked" by "tall tales" that weren't backed up by forensic evidence.
But the prosecution denied that.
"This defendant committed acts of such violence and depravity that they are almost beyond belief," said U.S. Attorney William M. McSwain. "This man is responsible for atrocities that will ripple for generations in Liberia. He thought he could hide here but thanks to the determination and creativity of our prosecutors and investigators, he couldn't."
The case represented one of a handful of legal efforts to track down people accused of committing atrocities during the civil wars that began in 1989 and devastated Liberia through most of the 1990s and early 2000s, experts said.
In 2008, the son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor was convicted in a federal court in Florida of torturing or ordering the torture of dozens of his father's political opponents. Charles McArthur Emmanuel, who is better known as Chuckie Taylor, was sentenced to 97 years in prison. He also was sued by five torture victims who were awarded $22.4 million in damages.
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