By Janet A. Sesay
Reality TV star, Hawa Madiana Hunt, on Monday, 20th January 2023, appeared again before Magistrate Santigie Bangura of Pademba Road Court No. 2 during which appearance her defence team submitted a “no-case” motion regarding the allegations of insulting President Bio and his wife proffered against her.
The Magistrate has in the circumstance, withdrawn the case file for a ruling on whether the matter should proceed to the High Court. The “No-Case” submission came after the Prosecution had led two pivotal witnesses and had closed its case.
Submitting his “no-case”, Lead Defence Counsel, Lawyer Rashid Dumbuya cited what he described as “procedural irregularities” when he noted that the case is not just about insults; but that it is a blatant disregard for due process by the Prosecution. Lawyer Rashid Dumbuya accused the Prosecution of persecuting his client rather than prosecuting the matter.
Lawyer Dumbuya remarked: “The Prosecution against his client is frivolous, malicious and vexatious. There is lack of sufficiency of evidence as adduced by the Prosecution to warrant a committal of the matter.”
Lawyer Rashid went on to raise jurisdictional issues, stating that his client was brought to the wrong court, adding that the matter should have been taken to the High Court. He noted that the High Court has original jurisdiction over the matter and therefore urged the Bench to strike out the matter and discharge his client. He also made mention of an error on the face of the indictment.
According to Lawyer Rashid, the charges should not have been “sending insulting messages” for there is no such offence in the Cyber Security and Crime Act. He also commented that the elements of the offence for which his client is brought before the court have not been proven by the Prosecution. He pointed out that the First Prosecution Witness did testify before the court that they logged into the Facebook account of the accused, but the video that was played does not show the logging in. He also made mention of the Second Prosecution Witness who testified that the video was not shared by the accused but a blogger in Germany, named Mama Lucky.
Lawyer Dumbuya stressed on what he believed is “lack of due process”, stating that the Prosecution did not bother to investigate those who shared the video, nor did they do any forensic examination on the voice on the video; and expressed strong conviction that the President and First Lady were not injured by the video in question, nor did they feel threatened by the video, for according to him, they would have reported the matter to the police and even come forward in court to testify. The Defense went on to inform the Bench that the accused is a Canadian citizen, stating that care must be taken not to destroy the good relationship the country has with Canada.
In his reply, State Counsel, Yusif Isaac Sesay said that his learned colleague has “misconstrued” Section 17 of the Cyber Security and Crime Act, noting that preliminary investigation is one of the vehicles used to approach the High Court. “One cannot just go to the High Court; there are vehicles and a preliminary investigation is one of those vehicles,” the Prosecuting State Counsel pointed out, and he added: “To say that the accused was brought in with wrong charges, marginal notes are not offences created, rather it is the wording that does.”
The State Counsel read out the statement in which the accused made a confessionary statement to the police that she created and sent the video on social media. “We are not persecuting. The accused herself made a confessionary statement to the police that she created and shared the video; even her body language can tell that she meant what she did,” he emphasized.
Like Lawyer Dumbuya, the Prosecuting State Counsel also made references to Case Laws to back up his argument, saying that in cases involving certain public officials, the Prosecution becomes the complainant by default, therefore the State, he said can take action.
Responding to the issue of the accused’s Canadian citizenship, Lawyer Sesay said that the accused is also a Sierra Leonean and must be subjected to the country’s laws.
After the arguments and counter arguments, Magistrate Bangura withdrew the file for his subsequent ruling, and ordered that Hawa Hunt be remanded and he adjourned the matter to Wednesday, 22nd January 2025.