Recent reports suggests that the FBI has begun investigation into the killing of five Catholic nuns allegedly by the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) for the first time two decades after.
An investigative report posted on the website of ProPublica and PBS Frontline, two renowned investigative institutions in the United States, said the FBI for the first time acknowledges that the investigation of the 1992 killing of five American nuns in Liberia is part of an active case.
The nuns were reportedly killed in the Gardnerville area in 1992 during an attempt by the NPFL to capture Monrovia and seize power by force of arm. Those killed include Shirley Kolmer, Barbara Ann Muttra, Mary Joel Kolmer, Agnes Mueller and Kathleen McGuire.
According to reports, initial investigation did not reveal any clue, but following several inquiries and getting accounts from anonymous sources, it seems the FBI has genuine reason to believe that the case requires further probe.
More than two decades later, ProPublica and PBS Frontline reportedly asked the FBI to provide a copy of its file on the slayings.
At first, the agency promised to do just that, and within months, the agency indicated that it was preparing to release the file. "It looks like about 150 pages, give or take," the FBI wrote.
But the records were never released, and the FBI says it is prohibited from doing so. Now, the long cold case, it seems, is once again important.
The killing of the five Catholic sisters, the FBI says, remains relevant to a "pending or prospective law enforcement proceeding." Releasing the information, the FBI says, "could reasonably be expected to interfere" with that proceeding.
It is the first time the FBI has publicly stated the case is anything other than over. Any significant development in the case would be a startling coda to one of the uglier incidents of the first of Liberia's terrible civil wars.
The nuns were killed during an assault on the Liberian capital conducted by Charles Taylor's NPFL, a former president who is currently facing prison term in Great Britain.
ProPublica became interested in the killings in 2014 as it investigated the role of the Firestone tire company in the violence that wracked Liberia for more than a decade.
The deaths of the nuns reverberated for years. The Catholic Church and human rights groups issued reports alleging that the killers were soldiers in Taylor's rebel force. But it took the FBI 10 years to open its investigation, and it was closed officially after another 10 fruitless years.
Late last year, Frontline and ProPublica reported that in May 2014 agents from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security arrested a high ranking associate of Charles Taylor named Tom Woewiyu. Woewiyu, who served as Taylor's Defense Minister, had been living in the United States.
Woewiyu was detained on an immigration charges, but the government, in a formal press release, celebrated the arrest of an "alleged war criminal."
After the arrest, an FBI agent notified the dead nuns' Illinois-based order, the Adorers of the Blood of Christ, also known as ASC. The agent said the FBI hoped to file human rights charges against Woewiyu that included the killing of the nuns, according to Cheryl Wittenauer, the order's spokeswoman.
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