U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities are moving to return George Boley Sr. to Liberia based on allegations that he was the leader of a warring faction that committed grisly human rights abuses during the West African country's more than decade-long civil war.

Immigration officials claim Boley entered the U.S. illegally and is responsible for extra-judicial killings — or killings outside the United States. Federal officials are seeking to deport Boley.

Boley, the 60-year-old former war lord, appeared briefly Wednesday before an immigration judge at the federal detention facility where he has been held since his Jan. 15 arrest. The proceedings are to continue March 16.

At a preliminary hearing today at a federal detention center in Batavia, Boley’s attorney Allen Farabee denied the charges.

Farabee also said in court that he may seek political asylum for Boley.

Boley, a former City School District administrator and temporary worker, came to the United States in 1960 and received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the State University College at Brockport. He returned to Liberia, entering politics, and ran unsuccessfully there for president in 1997.

Boley raised his family here while traveling between Liberia and the United States.

During the country’s civil war, he founded the Liberia Peace Council, which he has maintained pushed for a peaceful end to the country’s bloodshed. Some human rights activists contend, however, that the LPC engaged in horrific violence, burning alive some individuals.

Last year, Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission maintained that the LPC committed human rights violations, including massacres and sexual crimes. The commission, which is only advisory, recommended that Boley be prosecuted, though no official action has been taken in Liberia to charge him with crimes.

George Boley is a Liberian politician and former rebel leader. He is a member of the Krahn ethnic group. He is currently detained by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement on charges of lying in order to enter the United States and committing extrajudicial killing in a foreign state.