By Mohamed Foday Conteh
Randa Skeiky, an accused in a $500,000 theft matter, has pleaded not guilty to the charge during trial at a Freetown high court, presided over by Justice Momoh-Jah Stevens .
The complainant in the matter, Ali Abess a popular transport businessman testified before the same judge in August last year. Abess, in his testimony, accused Skeiky of stealing the said sum. Abess told the judge the accused was managing his branch office in Kenema when he called her to come to Freetown as he would be traveling out of the country.
The complainant said Skeiky came as instructed and that he introduced her to one Ibrahim Swaray who had been his business partner for over a decade. He said the accused was notified by him that there will be some financial transactions between her and Swaray while he would be in Lebanon.
According to the evidence by the complainant, he was the one that instructed the accused to retrieve the sum of 140,000 thousand dollars from his personal safe in his bedroom. But he claimed the accused carted away 500 thousand dollars instead of the instructed amount. He said that when he asked Skeiky upon his return about the said money, she did not reply to her.
The woman, on the other hand, in her cross-examination by the state prosecutor, Joseph A.K.Sesay denied the allegations levied against her. She agreed that the first prosecution witness, Abess did leave the administration of his business in her care before travelling to Lebanon in August 2018.
She told the judge that when the complainant returned from Lebanon, she met him in his living room. She said the wife of Abess was not in the living room at the time and that neither Abess nor his wife had ever stopped her from entering the living room.
The woman said that the complainant never asked her about a certain missing 1 million dollars. She also said it was Abess who told her to grant the request made by Swaray for a certain contract involving some government school buses. She however denied Swaray ever telling her that he needed 50 thousand dollars.
The accused agreed in court that her boss left her the keys to his Aberdeen residence and the shop.
The matter comes up again today 20th October this year before Justice Stevens at the high court in Freetown.
Copyright © Politico Online 20/10/21
