Panel urges Liberian president be barred

MONROVIA, Liberia, July 7 (UPI) -- Liberia's truth commission's report calls for the country's president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, and dozens of other senior officers to be barred from office.

The report's recommendations of a 30-year ban for Johnson-Sirleaf and the others could become law if the Liberian parliament, in which the opposition holds a majority, votes to adopt them, the BBC reported Tuesday.

Johnson-Sirleaf has admitted that she backed former warlord Charles Taylor's bloody rebellion 20 years ago.

The president was at the African Union summit in Libya last week when the report was released, but her spokesman told the British broadcaster the president was reviewing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report and would respond once she's finished.

"She will not be able to make an informed opinion until she can digest it, she can conceptualize it to see what the issues are," Cyrus Badio said.

In February, Johnson-Sirleaf testified before the commission that she believed Taylor's rebellion against military ruler Samuel Doe in the 1980s was necessary. Doe's death in 1990 sparked more than 10 years of violence between warring factions, killing about a quarter-million people and leaving Liberia in shambles.

She apologized to the commission for backing, Taylor, who later became president before fleeing the country.

Johnson-Sirleaf said she was "fooled" into supporting him, adding, "I feel it in my conscience. I feel it every day."

Taylor eventually was arrested on an international warrant and is being tried for war crimes in The Hague.