The open spat between Chief Justice Francis Korkpor and the President of the Liberian National Bar Association (LNBA) over whether there were political prisoners in Liberia in 1979 during the administration of the late President Tolbert has claimed public attention and has become the subject of public debate in many circles, both private and public.
The Chief Justice, claiming that he had been accused by unnamed individuals that while serving as Research Coordinator at the Bureau of Corrections, Ministry of Justice, in 1979, he was involved in the torture of political prisoners has dismissed the accusations as untrue and intended to injure his reputation.
Over Record of ‘political prisoners’ from Tolbert era
The utterance by Chief Justice Francis Korkpor that there were no political prisoners when he was employed with the Ministry of Justice, decades prior to becoming the head of the Judicial Branch of the Government, did not go down well with Counselor Tiawan Gongloe, who himself was a victim.
Addressing the opening of the March 2021 Term of the Supreme Court, Justice Korkpor, for the first time, recalled allegations that while working with the MoJ in the late 1970s as Research Coordinator at the Bureau of Correction, during the administration of President William R. Tolbert, it was reported that he tortured political prisoners.