A man believed to have participated in extrajudicial killings, a term for deaths carried out without any legal process or court authority, was deported from the United States to Liberia on Aug. 11. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement identified him as Amos Sheik Massaquoi, 55, a former combatant the agency believes served as chief bodyguard to Maj. Gen. Daniel Chea, a former leader in Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia. Massaquoi had been living in the United States for nearly two decades.
ICE says Massaquoi is believed to have ordered and participated in killings, torture, arbitrary arrests and detentions, forced labor, and the recruitment of child soldiers during Liberia's two civil wars, which ran from 1989 to 2003. The United Nations has estimated those conflicts killed almost 250,000 people, the majority of them civilians. Charles Taylor, who led the rebel movement before becoming Liberia's president, was later convicted of aiding and abetting crimes committed by rebel forces in neighboring Sierra Leone. The Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone sentenced him to 50 years in prison.
Massaquoi legally entered the United States in August 2006 but was authorized to remain only until November 6 of that year. He stayed far longer. Homeland Security Investigations arrested him in Maryland in August 2019 for being illegally present. An immigration judge granted him bond within two months and he was released. ICE took him back into custody on April 1, 2025, after officials said he failed to comply with the conditions of his release. An immigration judge ordered his removal the following month. ICE also noted that Massaquoi received specialized military training at an academy in China in 2004, one year after Liberia's second civil war ended.
The unit that tracked him
The deportation was supported by ICE's Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center, a unit within the agency that tracks people suspected of committing atrocities abroad who then try to enter or remain in the United States. Since 2003, ICE says it has arrested more than 520 people for human rights-related violations and removed 1,178 known or suspected human rights violators. The center has also stopped more than 415 suspected human rights violators and war crimes suspects from entering the country.
ICE Chicago Field Office Director Frank Padula said that confirmed human rights violators who believe they can hide in the United States are mistaken, and that ICE will pursue and remove anyone who committed atrocities abroad. HSI Maryland Special Agent in Charge Akil Baldwin said that anyone confirmed to have engaged in such bloodshed anywhere in the world has no place in the United States.
Anyone with information about a suspected human rights violator can contact the ICE tip line at 866-DHS-2-ICE.