On Cocaine Case: A Perverted Justice!
A true justice system takes into cognizance fairness, rectitude and fair dealing. The term justice can also mean the use of authority to uphold what is just as per fairness and secondarily by the rule of law. In the absence of all these features a justice system will for the most part of its dealings end up perverting the justice it is sworn to protect as has just been discovered by this Medium in a matter relating to the 2007 celebrated cocaine case.Â
In our country Sierra Leone today, most of those caught up in the ugly claws of the law could be said to the very few unfortunate ones to be caught up by the nemesis of justice. The prevailing justice system if not obviously biased and slow on the one hand, on the other hand it has generated enough proof to confirm that it has failed in meeting its objectives-the prevalence of fairness and justice no matter the influence that is tied down to the case.
Many ugly findings relating to the country’s judiciary has impressed that the country justice system is either incapable of delivering or is deliberately circumventing the course of justice for reasons that are not comprehensible.Â
A typical instance of that blind and biased justice system is seen in the cocaine trial which inevitably implicated a Mr. Chernor Momoudu Bah; former Senior Assistant Air Traffic Controller of the Sierra Leone Airport Authority. It happens according to findings made by this media that the now convicted Chernor Momoudu Bah was on an annual leave which took effect from the 5th June, 2008 to the 27th August, several days before the grand discovery of the majestic cocaine saga. Documents to confirm the fact that he was long on leave before the apparent cocaine case is in possession of this press as was also indicated records at the Airport Authority.
Mr. Bah as scapegoat for those who conspired to land a cocaine plane on the soil of Sierra Leone was interdicted due to the then ongoing investigations in to the cocaine saga of 13th July, 2008 for alleged complicity in the incident of which he has clean hands and never was he even at the scene. What continues to baffle the convicted Mr. Bah who is now very sick and have been brought from his prison cell to the Connaught hospital is that the police report and investigations indicate that he was at the air port when the incident took place and contrary to this fact, he had long gone on leave as was evident by the fact that the Head of crime services Assistant Inspector General of police Francis Alieu Munu went to interrogated him whilst on vacation rather arresting him at the airport as the police claims.
The big lie that defeats the imagination of most people in Lungi was that he was given a huge amount of money by one Gibril Kamara whose identity he has told Sierra Express Media he does not know or cannot lay any claim to. Appallingly though, no evidence or proof was given as what quantum of money given to Mr. C.M Bah as per the police reports.
Now the most perplexed question that has crossed the minds of some of his co-workers is that after an apparent ‘no-stone unturned’ investigations carried out at both his residence and elsewhere, did the police investigators had any proof or account either savings or current where the said money was lodged? What was the reason (s) for the incarceration and subsequent questionable conviction and upon what basis?
If all these salient questions are yet to be answered by the police who carried out the investigations; critical minds and lips will not stop at questioning the truthfulness and the legality that led to the doubtful incarceration of Mr. Bah. This is also true because, when the police took up a criminal matter on behalf of the state of Sierra Leone, it will be of transparent good on the side of the police having looked into the ‘nitty-gritty’ of the alleged criminal claim to established a fact to calm down the anxiety of the worrying public. But nothing of such was done to ensure the credibility of their said investigations Sierra Express has been able to ascertain.
Sadly enough, both Francis Munu-AIG and Musa B. Lappia as heads of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) had any proof to substantiate that money was given to Mr. Bah or any Account held by Mr. Bah either in Sierra Leone or outside Sierra Leone. In the absence of any tangible evidence against Mr. Bah, he is there challenging the police to come with these facts or to cross-check from the immigration Department whether he has been a regular traveler out of Sierra Leone; rubbishing the claims that he is in possession of unstated quantum of money given to him by Gibril Kamara, one of the principal suspects in the cocaine saga.
Such cases of unexplained justice have been very typical of our country. In the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report, it is stated that one of the main causes the rebel war in Sierra Leone was as a result of unfair justice system. The effectiveness and the arbitrary incarceration of some members of the society ferment grudge and troubles in the mindsets of many victims of the judicial dispensation of the 80’s right up to the 90’s. However, this instance dose not suggest that justice is dead in the current judicial dispensation; but just to draw the minds of people as to what were the major causes that brought untold suffering upon the people of this country due to unfair trails and premature incarceration of accused persons.
Moreover, it is stated in one of the outstanding paradigms of the ‘Rule of Law’ an accused is presumed to be innocent until he is proven guilty before a court of law. “This phrase when interpreted in simple terms means that after an individual is been thoroughly investigated and cross-examined in the highest court of the land if not found guilt should be exonerated.
Consequently, the inference made in the preceding paragraph is enough to ascertain the conviction in the above by-line that Sierra Leone’s justice system is blind and biased.
Aljahi M Tarawallie, FreetownStay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!
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