SLPPs Regret over Special Court decision

The Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) has expressed regret over the decision of the Special Court in sending kamajor war leaders to serve their sentences in Rwandan prisons, and is calling that they be imprisoned instead in Sierra Leone.

In a letter addressed to the Registrar of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the SLPP called that the SLPP kamajor leaders serve their prison sentences here in Sierra Leone, and suggested Bonthe Island, Mafanta or the holding cell in the Special Court as an alternative instead of taking them to Rwanda.

The kamajors, an ethnic based militia, was sponsored by the SLPP government and was given a free hold to carry out extra judicial killings in an effort to maintain the government in power and later to bring them back after the then president, Mr. Ahmad Tejan-Kabbah was overthrown.

Indications reveal that when Samuel Hinga Norman and other party stalwarts were indicted, the SLPP started having second thoughts over the Special Court even though they were the ones, while in power who called for it to be established.

According to earlier reports, the SLPP under the government of Mr. Ahmad Tejan-Kabbah had pushed for the establishment of the court so that they will nail all their presumed and real opposition members and put them out of political circulation. Apparently not satisfied with the indictment of soldiers and other politicians under dubious charges of collaboration over which the international community had repeatedly expressed disagreement, the then government has insisted on a Special Court seen as a good method of imprisoning their opponents.

However, when the Security Council had endorsed the Special Court, they had demanded that neutral judges sit over deliberations and not only Sierra Leonean judges. This had caused concern within the party’s hierarchy as reports filtering into the country reveal the Special Court was not only going to be for the indictment of  RUF and junta members only.

When the Court started sittings, one of those indicted included popular kamajor warlord and SLPP stalwart Hinga Norman.

Norman later died in detention, causing the SLPP to lose a considerable number of supporters. The death of Hinga Norman and the sentencing of the other two kamajors is said to have had a negative impact on the popularity of the SLPP in the last elections.

Meanwhile, attempts to confirm the reaction of the Special Court proved futile as Mr. Anderson, the Public Affairs Officer refused to provide any report on the matter.  

Although the SLPP also appealed for RUF offenders, the main trust of their appeal is for kamajor bosses Allieu Kondewai and Monina Fofanah to be nearer home as part of attempts to win over the South.

A source in the Special Court has however revealed that there are no plans to allow the criminals to serve their sentences in Sierra Leone. What has been stated cannot be changed, and as we are speaking their jails have been prepared as they are going, no jokes, our source said.

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