Jeremiah Kpan Koung AI image incident — Sep 2026

Nimba County Senator Samuel G. Kogar has publicly condemned the circulation of images purportedly generated or manipulated with artificial intelligence to ridicule Vice President Jeremiah Kpan Koung. The incident follows ongoing public debate regarding reports of the Vice President's security screening experience at Brussels Airport.

What happened

The controversy began amid uncorroborated eyewitness claims circulating in Liberian media that alleged the Vice President was subjected to heightened security screening while transiting through Brussels Airport, including requests to lift his shirt. Vice President Koung has disputed these accounts, stating he chose the regular passenger route to visit duty-free shops and that he was not required to remove clothing items like shoes or jackets.

As the debate over the airport incident intensified, images surfaced online that allegedly depicted the Vice President in humiliating and degrading situations. Senator Kogar identified these images as being produced or altered through artificial intelligence, labeling the practice an unacceptable development in Liberia's political discourse. While Kogar has demanded that those sharing the content remove it, no independent technical verification confirming the specific methods or tools used to create the images has been made public.

Senator Kogar emphasized that political disagreements do not justify the use of manipulated digital content to target national leaders. He has called upon the Liberian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide an official account of the events at Brussels Airport to clarify whether proper diplomatic and protocol procedures were followed. Kogar argued that concerns regarding the treatment of officials abroad should be handled through established diplomatic channels rather than through personal political attacks or the dissemination of digital forgeries. The situation remains a dual point of contention involving both the unverified reports of the airport screening and the broader implications of AI-driven misinformation in national politics.