Afsatu Trial – State House implicates witness acted upon instructions

In the ongoing trial of the former Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Afsatu Kabba yesterday appeared again before Justice Samuel Ademuse of Freetown High Court No1 where one of the protective witnesses started giving his evidence about the five cheques that have been tendered in court and the voucher that was prepared; he said that he was the one that prepared the said cheque upon instruction given to him by his immediate boss.

According to the witness, he is a civil servant, who works at the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resource for two years, one month.

The cheques  were tendered in court  as Exhibit A1 to A5, he said that  Exhibit A1 was a cheque of Le160 million which was paid to Yeane Enterprise,  Exhibit A2  was  a cheque of  Le35 million credited in cash; Exhibit A3 a cheque of  Le 35 Million that was also credited in cash, and  A4, a cheque of  Le 30 million credited in cash too, lastly, Exhibit A5 was a cheque of Le 40 million which was to pay cash

According to the witness before preparing the cheques he got the instruction from his immediate boss that Le 300 million was for State House and he told his boss that the amount is too much and his boss told him that he also got the instruction form Minister Afsatu Kabba to withdraw the said amount from the Central Bank as she just give him verbal instruction.

Exhibits A2 to A3 totaling Le 240 million were supposed to have been the said contractor (Yeane Enterprise ) at Lamin Sankoh Street,the witness further went on to tell the court that after withdrawal of Le 240 million his boss called the Minister on the phone who he said instructed him hand over the said money to the contractor for she was in Parliament at the time, this he said prompted them to go to Parliament where the Minister was and Le 230 million to the Minister’s driver and the security. He however noted that during the transaction the Minister was not present but that she later joined.

After his evidence, one of the defence Lawyers Suliman Tejan Jalloh asked the court for an adjournment for cross examination on the grounds that the lead defence counsel who is JB Jenkins Johnston was not present in court and also the accused who is standing the trial has raised certain issue on the evidence of the witness that they needed to discuss.

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