David Farley Keili Speaks Out on Fatal Accident in Bombali
An emotionally gutted David Farley Keili spoke to Awareness Times yesterday, 6th November 2012, from his detention at the Makeni Police Station. He first of all extended his deepest sympathies and condolences to the SLPP as a party and to all the families and friends of those who lost their lives in the unfortunate accident which occurred whilst he, David, was at the wheel of his Mazda millennium car.
According to David Keili, he is extremely disheartened in a manner in which he cannot ever recall having been in all the years of his life. To be involved in an incident where as a result of a vehicle he was driving, many are injured and two people have so far lost their lives, is something which David Keili says he has been unable to bear right now.
He took his time to explain that contrary to what was initially floated, he was not driving his Prado jeep but his Mazda car. He also denied travelling at high speed but at “around 30 miles per hour”. He said the fact that the air bags did not burst open shows that the vehicle did not meet the collision at high speed. Keili had been coming from a social entertainment function; the opening of the newly built house of a former SLPP Parliamentarian, Hon. Tholley. He was in the car with a University student daughter of Hon. Tholley whom he had been giving a lift. Contrary to reports, neither him nor the lady had on a red T-shirt.
Mr. David Keili is also appealing to the Sierra Leone Peoples Party, (SLPP), the party of his entire family members, not to politicise the accident as was now being done with claims that it was a premeditated act of murder for political reasons.
“How can anyone, anyone even be saying today that I will plan to hit and kill SLPP members? That allegation is weighing down on me so badly,” David Keili painfully said adding, “It has been sent all around the world. I understand that one SLPP supporter, a professor in Texas, even wrote on Leonenet that I am an APC supporter who got very angry at seeing a crowd of SLPP supporters that I reversed my vehicle and then pressed the accelerator to drive into the crowd. It is not true. Nothing like that happened”.
According to David Keili, an approaching vehicle, just by a curve, came towards him with its headlights fully lit thus blinding him and forcing him to slow his vehicle down. After the offending vehicle had passed, when he tried to move further, he then saw a parked vehicle right in front of him parked badly and in an attempt not to hit that vehicle, he swerved his car to avoid that parked vehicle only to see a bunch of people right on the road in front of him.
“I hit my brakes very hard but it was too late, the car was just rolling over people until it finally stopped. I really hit the brakes hard but it was too late. Too late,” Keili lamented.
David Keili has also asked all his friends and family members around the world to have confidence that what happened was not as a result of any untoward action on his part.
“It was a series of events happening at the same time which resulted in that accident. I have driven a car for over 34 years now and this has never happened to me. I am a very responsible driver,” David Keili says.
Finally, Keili appealed once again to the SLPP to stop politicising the accident. He accused the SLPP hierarchy of taking European Union Elections Observers to intimidate the police officers in Makeni.
“It was as a result of the terrible political things that the SLPP leaders were saying that the police officers refused to grant me bail even though lawyers and sureties were available to do the paperwork. The SLPP forced the police to lock me up in a dark and terrible police cell without bail,” Keili lamented of the SLPP.
David Keili is insisting that at the time of the accident, SLPP supporters, led by a certain Bombali District executive member, were dancing in the middle of the road in the darkness and that there was a free flow of alcohol in the political revelry that was going on “after 9pm”.
For these elections, all political rallies are supposed to end at 6pm or 7pm but many politicians have been campaigning with no regard to those time limits. Candidates have been known to enter areas at 3am to campaign. Regular campaigns in the darkness of the night have been a hallmark of these campaigns.
David Keili, whose elder brother Andrew lost out to Maada Bio for the position of SLPP presidential candidate, says neither him nor his brother Andrew, have anything against the SLPP. He recounts of how when SLPP presidential candidate Maada Bio last week visited Mobai in Mandu Chiefdom of Kailahun district, it was inside the brand new house built by David Keili for his late mother, that Julius Maada Bio rested and ate his food.
“How will I ever plan to kill SLPP supporters? Why will I hate SLPP? It was an unfortunate accident. I am sorry. I am so sorry; truly, truly sorry for the loss of lives, the pains and injuries. I am totally devastated. I am sorry,” David Keili lamented.
David Keili is a professional engineer with an excellent professional and personal record. He has worked in America and in Africa. As London Mining Company’s Managing Director, he was the brains behind the jumpstarting of that iron ore project which has considerably contributed to the boost in the country’s economy. Right now, he is involved in ongoing work to develop the second phase of the Bumbuna Hydro-electric Project. He is currently not involved in active politics but he has been strongly touted as the possible next Paramount Chief of Mandu Chiefdom following the death of the last P.C. of Mandu.
Please keep David Keili in your prayers at this time as well as the injured and bereaved. May the souls of the departed rest in perfect peace.
Courtesy of Dr. Sylvia Blyden, Awareness Times
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