This story by Michael Petrou is nowhere mentioned on the crowded cover of our current print edition (a state of affairs I find disappointing) and, a week after its publication, has received no attention from any of the dozens of news organizations currently frothing at the mouth over, say, Ann Coulter. We like to complain in this country that there is too little original reporting about important matters deserving wider public attention, but then when significant original reporting happens we pay it too little heed.
This story by Michael Petrou is nowhere mentioned on the crowded cover of our current print edition (a state of affairs I find disappointing) and, a week after its publication, has received no attention from any of the dozens of news organizations currently frothing at the mouth over, say, Ann Coulter. We like to complain in this country that there is too little original reporting about important matters deserving wider public attention, but then when significant original reporting happens we pay it too little heed.
Here’s Mike’s lede:
A former commander in a rebel Liberian army who has been accused by multiple witnesses and former associates of war crimes and crimes against humanity is living freely in Toronto.
The rest of the story levels grave accusations of the most heinous crimes against Bill Horace, who is walking around Toronto today. These include murder, torture, rape, crucifixion and beheading, by Horace or by fighters under his direct command. To say the least, Mike doesn’t level these accusations lightly. He spent a year nailing this story down, hiring an investigator in Liberia, gathering written and oral testimony from a multitude of eyewitnesses. Here in the Ottawa bureau, we got used to coming into the office at any hour of the day or night and hearing Petrou, behind the closed door of his office, shouting over a shaky telephone line to somebody on the other side of an ocean as he tried to nail down some element of this story.
Now you should read it.