HOW CAN YOU CALL ME “BIG BROTHER” AND DISTORT THE HISTORY OF MY TORTURE? A Concise Rejoinder to Retired Col. Joseph G. Kollie’s Facebook Post, “Rebuttal to My Big Brother, Cllr. Tiawan Saye Gongloe’s Call for the IGP’s Resignation”—Including His Criticism of Stanton Witherspoon and the Spoon Panelists for Elevating My Call
By Tiawan Saye Gongloe
Question: Col. Kollie, do you have the right to disagree with my call for the IGP’s resignation?
Answer: Certainly. You may defend Inspector General Gregory Coleman and challenge my legal or political conclusions. But disagreement does not give you the right to distort the history of my arbitrary arrest, detention and torture—and then continue calling me your “big brother.”
For more than twenty-four years, I deliberately omitted your name when recounting what happened to me. We knew each other for a considerable period in the late 1990 and early 2000s and you regularly called me “big brother.” Therefore, immediately following my torture, I gave you the benefit of the doubt and hoped that whatever role you played that night resulted from superior orders. But, your Facebook post has caused me to withdraw that benefit of the doubt.
Question: Was I tortured by ordinary inmates acting without police knowledge?
Answer: That is not what I witnessed.
At approximately 10:00 p.m. on April 24, 2002, I saw you and Saah Gbollie, then Deputy Director of Police for Operations, at the door of the cell where I was detained. Shortly afterward, you returned and removed three detainees who were members of the security forces. They remained away for approximately thirty minutes. Before you removed them, they had been friendly toward me. One identified himself as Mr. Kollie, a member of the Special Operations Division and a former member of the LPC rebel faction. They said they had been accused of forcibly taking L$19,000 from a money exchanger on Warren Street, Monrovia. Upon their return, they were had completely changed in behavior and were very angry with me, perhaps based what they had been told about me.
They ordered me to remove my shirt, trousers and underwear. They accused me of wanting to overthrow the government and “take off” their uniforms. All three men participated in forcing me to “pump tire”—repeated squats—while punching and striking me. I counted with them until the number exceeded two thousand. I then lost consciousness.
These were not ordinary inmates engaged in a spontaneous quarrel. They were security officers whom you removed from the cell and who returned thirty minutes later with a new attitude and an immediate purpose: to strip, humiliate, interrogate and torture me.
Question: You say you first learned about my torture the following morning. What do I say?
Answer: I say that I saw you there that night. I saw you at the cell door.
I saw you remove the three security officers. I saw them return approximately thirty minutes later.
Immediately after their return, the torture began.
Your account and my account are now open to the public to say who is telling the truth.
Question: Is there corroboration beyond my personal account?
Answer: Yes.
Human Rights Watch reported two days after my arrest that I had been stripped, placed in a police cell and severely beaten by plainclothes police officers. It also reported that police guards remained at my hospital bed and that Police Director Paul Mulbah publicly stated that I remained in police custody. Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists also treated what happened as torture committed while I was detained by Liberian authorities.
In 2006, Tony Kabadeh brought Mr. Kollie—one of the three men who tortured me—to my office. Mr. Kollie apologized for his participation and asked for forgiveness in Mr. Kabadeh’s presence. Tony Kabadeh is alive and prepared to confirm what he witnessed.
Mr. Kollie also informed me that the other two participants had been killed during the 2003 civil conflict. I forgave him and gave him money. He died approximately two years ago.
Forgiveness, however, is not forgetfulness. It does not authorize anyone to rewrite history.
Question: Even if inmates had acted independently, would that excuse the police?
Answer: No.
A detainee in a police cell is under police protection. If an “inmate government” was permitted to strip and torture a detainee inside Police Headquarters, that would demonstrate a catastrophic failure of police command, supervision and custodial responsibility.
The police cannot surrender control of their cells to inmates and then use that surrender as a defense.
Question: Why mention the United States immigration authorities?
Answer: Because your public effort to minimize documented torture raises legitimate questions about what you disclosed when seeking immigration status in the United States. The same questions should be posed to former Major Dolo Mark, the police officer who arrested and detained me, since he also resided in the United States.
I am not asking anyone to presume your guilt or cancel your status without due process. I am calling upon the appropriate authorities to review any relevant representations and credible evidence concerning your role in Liberia’s security apparatus.
The United States should not knowingly provide sanctuary to anyone found, after a lawful investigation, to have committed, aided, concealed or misrepresented involvement in serious human-rights abuses.
Question: Did Stanton Witherspoon and the Spoon panelists create this controversy?
Answer: No.
They did not make the IGP’s statement. They did not originate my call for accountability. They gave a matter of national importance the public attention it deserved.
If you disagree with my position, answer me. Do not blame the journalists and panelists who allowed Liberians to hear and debate it.
Do not blame the microphone because you dislike the message.
Question: Did the arrest of former Vice President Jewel Howard-Taylor and certain police officers answer my concern?
Answer: No. Those prosecutions must be acknowledged, and every accused person remains presumed innocent.
But the IGP reportedly stated that the cocaine operation was sanctioned by state actors at a “very, very senior level.” Former Vice President Jewel Howard-Taylor was charged afterward, but she had left office in January 2024.
The question therefore remains: Exactly which state actors did the IGP mean, from what period of government, and what action has been taken concerning them?
Have they been identified, questioned, investigated, charged or cleared? Has the evidence been transmitted to prosecutors? If the investigation remains active, what independent mechanism is ensuring that it proceeds without political interference?
These are questions—not convictions.
Question: Does the doctrine of sub judice prevent these questions?
Answer: No.
Pending defendants are entitled to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence. But sub judice does not stop the investigation of other suspects. It does not prevent citizens from demanding institutional accountability, and it does not silence responsible media discussion.
The prosecution of some people does not prove that every person implicated has been pursued.
Question: Must I seek mandamus before calling for the IGP’s resignation?
Answer: No.
Mandamus ordinarily compels the performance of a clear legal duty. It does not generally allow a citizen to direct discretionary police investigations or prosecutorial decisions.
More importantly, I do not need a court order before exercising my constitutional right to criticize a public official.
Criminal prosecution is one form of accountability. A public call for resignation or dismissal is another. They are not the same.
Question: Does the President’s power to dismiss the IGP silence the public?
Answer: No.
No one claims that Spoon has the legal authority to dismiss the IGP. The point is that citizens have the right to call upon the President to exercise his authority.
Public office is held in trust for the people. The people may therefore evaluate public officials and demand their resignation or removal.
My support for President Boakai during the 2023 runoff does not require me to remain silent when I believe his government is wrong. Loyalty to Liberia must always be greater than loyalty to any government or individual.
Question: What am I demanding now?
Answer: A credible and independent account of what followed the IGP’s extraordinary disclosure.
If everyone against whom credible evidence exists has been investigated, the government should say so without compromising pending cases. If investigations are continuing, the public should be appropriately informed. If politically influential persons are implicated, the evidence must be followed without fear or favor.
If the IGP cannot satisfactorily explain what became of the “very, very senior” state actors to whom he referred, President Boakai should remove him from control of the investigation and establish a genuinely independent inquiry. If public confidence cannot otherwise be restored, the President should dismiss him or the IGP should resign.
Col. Kollie, you may disagree with my politics, challenge my legal conclusions and defend the IGP.
But do not call me your “big brother” while diminishing the torture I endured.
Do not rewrite a history written on my body, preserved in my memory and documented by independent human-rights organizations.
You may dispute my opinions. But you have no right to change what happened to me on the night of April 24, 2002.
A better Liberia is possible!
