By Abass Jalloh
Magistrate Sahr Kekura of Court No. 1 has acquitted and discharged one Santigie Manika Kamara who was accused of damaging corporate structure on a land belonging to a church at Mile 96 in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone.
On Friday 20th August 2021, Santigie Manika Kamara was accused of unlawfully entering into the land of the complainant, Pastor Paul Maurice, at the said village in the Port Loko Judicial District. He was accused of maliciously damaging the corporate structure of Breathe Alive Bible Church valued at Thirty Million Eight hundred and Thirty-Five Thousand Leones (Le 30,835,000).
The accused was charged with malicious damage contrary to section 51 of the Malicious Damage Act of 1961.
In his ruling yesterday 21st July 2022, the magistrate stated that the prosecution presented six witnesses, but “none of the prosecution witnesses testified that they saw the accused entered the land in question and damaged a corporate church on the 20th August 2021, hence the prosecution has failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt against the accused person on both counts”.
He stated that the authority in which the associating counsel proffered regarding circumstantial evidence relied on are “unsubstantiated and uncorroborated”. He said: “None adhered to correlation of circumstances. There is no evidence that the crime alleged as being committed by the accused”.
Magistrate Kekura stated that in any criminal trial it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the guilt of the accused person, and “therefore the burden of proof rests with the prosecution squarely”.
He stated that in this case only the fourth Prosecuting Witness (PW4) testified that he saw the accused on the eve of the alleged incident and that they were working on the land when the accused met and asked them as to who sent them, to which they mentioned the complainant.
Kekura said the PW4 further testified that the accused stated that he owns the land and that even if they “build skyscraper” on it, they would demolish it. The witness upon hearing that asked his workers to take their tools and vacate the site, the magistrate said.
He said he was concerned the prosecution did not come with the workers on that site to corroborate the same and that “none of the prosecution witnesses corroborated the evidence of the PW 4”.
“This alleged issue did not take place on the 20th August 2021 but rather allegedly on the 19th of August 2021,” the magistrate stated, adding that “the date on the case of the information with the particulars of offence states the 20th of August 202; in the instance, none of the prosecution witnesses testified that they saw the accused entered on the said piece of land”.
He added: “None of the prosecution witnesses gave evidence of proof that on the 20th August 2021 they saw the accused destroying or damaging corporate church structure”.
Magistrate Kekura stated that the Associating Counsel brought several circumstances to the court but were not corroborated and that the witnesses alleged that in the past the accused demolished the church building but apologized when he was taken to police at Masiaka where he pleaded for mercy and paid cost, stating that this aspect was not corroborated by way of bringing the Police to testify the same.
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