Delco man from Liberia accused of wartime atrocities

PHILADELPHIA » A 64-year-old man who fled his native war-torn Liberia nearly 20 years ago and now resides in Darby Township is being sued by an international human rights organization on behalf of four individuals who accuse him of hideous atrocities, according to documents filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Moses Thomas is being sued civilly for committing atrocities tied to civil war in the West African country, which the plaintiffs survived by hiding amongst hundreds of slaughtered bodies in and around a church compound housing hundreds of refugees back in July 1990.

Thomas, according to published reports, vehemently denies the heinous allegations described in the 37page civil suit, which suggests he arrived in the United States by pretending he was trying to escape the “very war crimes” that he directed.

“This lawsuit is nonsense. It’s stupidity,” Thomas told WHYY Radio.

“It’s all lies. The stuff they’re talking about is nonsense. You can call anyone in the Republic of Liberia and given them my name and they will tell you that this is nonsense,” Thomas was quoted in a story published in the Philadelphia Inquirer and on philly.com.

It was not immediately known if Thomas had retained an attorney.

Born in Liberia, Thomas immigrated to the United States around 2000. He currently resides with his girlfriend on Tribbett Avenue in Darby Township. The phone number for their home address is unpublished.

The plaintiffs in the case are citizens of Liberia, and direct survivors of the St. Peter’s Lutheran Church Massacre, a designated Red Cross humanitarian aid center offering shelter to civilians displaced from violence in Liberia’s countryside in the capital city of Monrovia. The names of the four plaintiffs in the case, filed by the San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability and

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