By Mohamed Foday Conteh
The High Court is set to give a ruling on former 2018 elections All People’s Congress (APC) Presidential aspirant, Dr Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara and five others who are standing trial for corruption allegations bordering on the renovation of Sierra Leone’s Chancery Building in New York, United States.
The presiding judge, Justice Adrian Fisher was to adjourn the hearing after one of the lawyers representing Dr. Kamara, Joseph Fitzgerald Kamara raised an objection on Friday 21st January this year.
The lawyer’s objection was centred on the legal parameters allowing the matter to proceed with the absence of the sixth accused, Jules Sanders Davis, President of Fairfield Construction Company LLC -company said to have been tasked with the renovation of the building.
The court had ruled in closed-door sitting on the 5th January this year for Davis to be tried in absentia.
Lawyer Kamara, however, sneered at the ruling while arguing that the law does not provide for a non-citizen outside the jurisdiction to be tried in absentia.
“I want the entire indictment to be quashed,” said lawyer Kamara.
Meanwhile on the same day, senior State Counsel, Oladipo Robin-Mason Snr. led in the Chief of Investigations at the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), Joseph Bockarie Noah as the first prosecution witness.
Noah, in his testimony, said the matter was referred to his department for investigations on the 28th May 2021 and added that he was tasked with supervision of the entire investigation process.
He mentioned that he was assisted by two other senior investigators that probed the matter both in Sierra Leone and later in the US.
The ACC investigator said he was, however, on another assignment at the People’s Republic of China (PRC) when the team left for the US.
The prosecution had wanted the investigator to tender statements the ACC took from all accused persons in court but lawyers from the defence raised a number of objections.
The objections centred on claimed defects in the statements and that the witness was in China at the time and so was not part of the investigations.
Justice Fisher overruled the objections after the prosecution replied that Noah is fit to tender the said statements since he is charged with the responsibility of superintending investigations at the ACC.
The judge adjourned the matter for the 18th February after promising to email his ruling to all counsels on the 16th February 2022.
In the meantime, the judge also granted leave to the first defendant, Saidu Nallo, former Head of New York Chancery Sierra Leone’s Permanent Mission to the UN to travel as requested by his lawyers.
Dr Kamara was in court together with Saidu Nallo; former Financial Attaché to Sierra Leone’s Mission to the UN, Foday Vahfomba Bawoh and former Permanent Representative of the Sierra Leone Mission to the UN, Foday Suma and Dr Kandeh Foday Basil Kamara, Financial Attaché to the country’s mission to the UN to answer to various corruption charges, relating to the renovation of the nation’s Chancery Building in New York, US.
Copyright © 2022 Politico Online (24/01/22)
