First Instance Proceedings
He was found guilty on all four counts on October 18, and on April 19, 2018 was sentenced to 30 years in prison. This was the maximum sentence he could have received, and the longest sentence for immigration fraud in U.S. history.
Jabbateh was a high-ranking rebel commander of the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO) during the First Liberian civil war, and later in the ULIMO-K when ULIMO split into two factions. He withheld information about his criminal actions while in these positions and thereby provided false information to U.S. immigration authorities when seeking asylum. According to the indictment, Jabbateh repeated similar false statements about his wartime activities in his later application for legal permanent residence in which he also denied that he had secured asylum fraudulently, in violation of U.S. law.
Jabbateh is alleged to have either personally committed or ordered his troops to commit numerous mass atrocity crimes, including, but not limited to: 1) the murder of civilian noncombatants; 2) the sexual enslavement of women; 3) the public raping of women; 4) the maiming of civilian noncombatants; 5) the torturing of civilian noncombatants 6) the enslavement of civilian noncombatants; 7) the conscription of child soldiers; 8) the execution of prisoners of war; 9) the desecration and mutilation of corpses; and 10) the killing of any person because of race, religion, nationality, ethnic origin or political opinion. Jabbateh, like many other alleged Liberian war criminals, has never been held accountable for his wartime actions in any national or international court.
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