A Brockport-area man faces charges alleging that he was responsible for murders while

serving as the leader of the Liberia Peace Council, one of several tribal groups involved in

bloody warfare in the west African nation in the 1990s.

George S. Boley Sr., 60, faces a Wednesday immigration hearing in the Federal Detention

Center in Batavia, where he has been held since he was taken into custody at the Peace Bridge

on Jan. 15 by agents from U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement.

"He faces two charges — one of being present in the United States without valid

documentation, and a second charge of committing extra-judicial killing ... killing that took

place outside the U.S.," said Lev Kubiak, supervisor of the agency's investigations in

Buffalo. "At this point, these are noncriminal charges filed by our agency."

Boley has denied for years that he took part in any atrocities in Liberia, his son, George

Boley Jr., told The Buffalo News on Sunday. The younger Boley claims the U.S. government is

trying to force his father to leave America because his father filed a civil rights lawsuit

against federal agents last year.

"They want to expel him from this country forever," Boley Jr. said in an interview. "The

truth of the matter is ... my father created the Liberia Peace Council to avert civil war and

return Liberia to democratic and constitutional law ... I want to see who they come up with as

witnesses. Who actually saw my father shoot anybody? You won't find evidence of that in any

report."

Kubiak said he could not discuss any of the specifics regarding the evidence linking Boley

to any murders in Liberia.

"Generally speaking, I can tell you, U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement places a very

high priority on these human rights investigations involving atrocities that occur in other

countries," Kubiak said. "We do not want the United States to become a safe haven for people

who have committed human rights crimes in other countries and then tried to hide in America."

While no criminal charges have been filed against Boley, Kubiak pointed out that another

such investigation led to a criminal case against Charles "Chuckie" Taylor Jr., the son of

former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, in 2008. Taylor Jr. was convicted by an American jury

of numerous incidents of beatings and torture of Liberians. The younger Taylor was sentenced

to 97 years in the U.S. prison system last year.

The Taylor prosecution was the first in the U.S. under a law that criminalizes torture and

gives the U.S. courts jurisdiction to hear cases involving torture in other countries —

provided the offender is a U.S. national or is living in the U.S., regardless of nationality,

agency officials said.

According to a commission that investigated atrocities in Liberia, the Liberia Peace

Council was headed by Boley and was one of several warring factions responsible for atrocities

in the 1990s. In a report issued last year, Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission said

Boley's group was one of several responsible for "human rights and humanitarian law

violations."

Violent struggles, torture and massacres took place in Liberia from 1979 until 2003, the

reconciliation commission said. From a prewar population of 3 million, around 250,000 people

were killed and 1.5 million were displaced, the group said.

But his family insists that Boley, who has traveled from Clarkson back to his homeland on

numerous occasions, was a rival of Taylor's violent regime who wanted only to help establish a

peaceful democracy in Liberia.

His son, who is a martial arts instructor in New York City, said his father has lived

peacefully in Clarkson — a small town a few miles north of Brockport and 70 miles from

Buffalo — "on and off for almost 40 years." He said his father initially came to America

to attend college and raised seven children with his wife, Kathryn. Boley Jr. said his father

is a former administrator with the public school system in Rochester.

In 2006, immigration agents in Rochester arrested Boley on charges that he was illegally in

the U.S., but those charges were dropped at the request of federal prosecutors.

Last July, in connection with the 2006 arrest, Boley filed a lawsuit against the Homeland

Security Department, whose agencies include Immigrations & Customs Enforcement. The lawsuit,

still pending, charges federal agents with "reckless, intentional" and "malicious" violations

of Boley's civil rights.

His son said Boley lost his job after the 2006 arrest and hasn't found employment since.

"He's been in and out of this country for close to 40 years, with no problems, no issues,

until that [2006] arrest," Boley Jr. said of his father.

Kubiak denied any wrongdoing by federal agents. He said the two charges the immigration

agency filed last month against Boley could lead to his deportation from the U.S. He declined

to speculate whether Boley will ever face criminal charges.

"I know he is [innocent,]" Kathryn Boley said of her husband. "I believe in the Lord Jesus

Christ, and he is fighting this battle for us."