Ex-Officer Says Doe Fed People to 2 Pet Lions

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — Slain Liberian President Samuel K. Doe fed starving people to two lions he kept at his besieged executive mansion, a former Liberian army major said in a newspaper report today.

The lions, which ate 250 pounds of meat a day, were fed dogs and even “some residents of the mansion who were dying of hunger,” Maj. Henry Chibli told the Daily Mail, a government-owned newspaper in Sierra Leone.

Chibli, who claimed to have met with Doe “practically every day,” said he escaped to Sierra Leone two days before Doe was captured Sept. 9 by a rebel force headed by Prince Johnson. Doe was later killed by the rebels.