Prince Yormie Johnson, Liberian warlord-turned-politician, who become notorious for the 1990 photos of him sipping beer era the-then president was once tortured within sight, has died on the while of 72.

As one of the crucial key figures within the two civil wars between 1989 and 2003, the Fact and Reconciliation Fee stated he must be prosecuted for battle crimes, regardless that he was once by no means delivered to trial.

However as a senator since 2005, he was once extremely influential in Liberian politics, backing the closing 3 a hit presidential applicants.

Hour some have celebrated his political position, others seen him as a logo of the rustic’s struggles with duty.

“We see his death as a blow to many victims who were awaiting to see the senator to face justice given his role in the civil war,” human rights activist and campaigner for a different battle crimes courtroom Adama Dempster advised the BBC.

An estimated 250,000 population died within the conflicts and lots of survivors from sexual attack and alternative assaults have been left completely scarred.

The reason for Johnson’s loss of life within the capital, Monrovia, has now not been disclosed.

In a condolence message to his nation, President Joseph Boakai – who Johnson supported in his presidential marketing campaign closing moment – described him as “a figure who played a pivotal role in Liberia’s complex historical evolution and contributed to national discourse through his service in the Senate”.

Again in 1990, insurgent infantrymen from Johnson’s Isolated Nationwide Patriotic Entrance of Liberia captured President Samuel Doe and have been later, in entrance in their chief, filmed mutilating him – his ear was once sliced off – earlier than he was once killed.

The warlord next expressed remorseful about for what had took place, however, as quoted via the AFP information company, truthful his position within the battle, pronouncing he was once protecting “my country, my people, who were led to the slaughterhouse as if they were chickens and goats, by the Doe regime”.

He also said he had changed and had become a pastor in an evangelical church.

As a politician he was praised by his constituents in Nimba county for working to improve their lives.

But he also courted controversy.

In 2021 Johnson was sanctioned by the US for alleged involvement in so-called pay-for-play funding, where he would reportedly personally benefit from the distribution of government funding to various ministries.

He was also accused of selling votes for personal gain in several elections, leading to criticism from some of his allies.

But Wilfred Bangura, a former leading official in Johnson’s Movement for Democracy and Reconstruction, said “politically he was very weighty and strong” and that he simplest modified alliances as soon as he noticed population transferring clear of him.

Hour undoubtedly respected and being mourned via many in his house county – the place he was once observable as a hero and liberator – somewhere else population really feel he was once now not made to pay for the crimes dedicated all through the civil battle.