Former Minister of Basic and Senior School Education (MBSSE), Alpha Timbo and his deputy Emily Gogra and two others have been discharged by the High Court owing to ACC’s failure to present evidence to prove their guilt.
The MBSSE officials were arrested and arraigned on allegations of misappropriation of hundreds of bags of rice worth of millions of Leones.
The rice was donated by the Chinese government as part of their contribution to the Free Quality Education Project of the ‘New Direction’ Government.
Upon donation, the rice was meant to be supplied to government schools, but the Anti-Corruption (ACC), the country’s anti-graft agency alleged that the donated rice had been misappropriated.
After months of legal battle at the High Court, the officials were discharged as the court does not agree with the evidence offered by ACC.
An ACC official says although MBSSE officers have been discharged, they can still be arrested on the same offence noting that to “discharge” is not the same as to “acquit.”
“An accused person who is discharged for a particular offence can be arrested for the same offence. However, you cannot arrest him for the same offence if acquitted,” the ACC official said.
However, contemporaneous media reports have shown that the ACC boss, Francis Ben Kaifallah is blaming the sacked Attorney-General to have opted for a trial by judge and jury for corruption offences.
Since their arrest by ACC, the officials have lost their spaces at MBSSE as it is a legal requirement that anyone accused of a corruption offence must be set aside to ensure an independent investigation.
Now that they have been freed, it is not yet clear whether they would go back to work since their posts are no longer vacant.
Another attempt to prosecute the Nigerian law professor, Emmanuel Femi Gbenga by ACC was also futile. The ACC’s broad sheets of case files and voluminous books of case laws were a smoking gun in their hands.
Their prosecution effort against the learned professor did not hold as they failed to offer evidence to nail the professor on the cross.
However, Professor Gbenga is now free, but his career has been ruined.
The Nigerian professor told the press that he had no career again owing to the ACC’s allegation of forgery of academic credentials.
“Back home, my two kids were molested and harassed as a result of the ACC arrest and prosecution,” he cried.
Only God knows whether Professor Gbenga would be useful again in the world of work as the allegation has thrown an indelible dirt on his academic and legal robes and made them stinky.
It is another fatal blunder on the part of ACC which makes allegations without proving them in court.
Quite recently, the Master and Registrar of High Court who was arrested with other officials was also freed by the court after a painstaking effort of prosecution by ACC.
The registrar was arrested on allegations of misappropriation of public funds, but evidence offered by ACC could not prove any dishonesty on his part.
The case of the President and the Secretary-General of Sierra Leone Football Association, Isha Johansen and Chris Kamara respectively is another bright example of ACC’s weakness in their prosecution effort.
The case of the two officials attracted international attention because the money which they were accused to have misappropriated came from the world football governing body, the Federation International Football Association.
The euphoria the case generated did not match with the outcome as the officials were not only discharged but also acquitted.
The ACC prosecutors were saddened by the ‘not-guilty’ verdict read by the Learned Justice Reginald Finn.
The ACC Chief also tweet ‘Kudos to Country’ after the verdict, but promised to appeal the matter at the court of appeals. To date, no appeal has been filed. The appeal move by ACC has been viewed as a sinister cover-up of their defeat in court.
The list is not exhaustive of other serious matters ACC have lost recently. Such failed attempt of prosecution has caused the public to raise large eye brows on the work of the commission.
A community activist and teacher in one of the secondary schools at Calaba Town, east of Freetown views the flurry of ACC arrest and prosecution as a ploy to remove hardworking public and civil servants from their posts.
The ACC move, he says, is bad especially for a country dominated by ignorance and gullibility.
“As long as one is said to be corrupt, the people will accept it without cross checking even after one is freed,” he said.
Mr Bangura seems not comfortable with the manner the anti-graft agency is losing matters in court.
It is controvertibly true that the ACC is dealing with offences whose proof in court is cumbersome. However, crimes within the ACC investigative domain are not wide ranging.
The agency does not look at offences of murder, robbery, treason and other complex criminal offences.
The ACC looks at economic crimes committed by government officials implying that their scope of investigation is limited compared to Criminal Investigation Department of the Sierra Leone Police.
The scope of investigation of the ACC places the ACC in a very fine position of preparing well before going to court.
Despite the number of cases they have lost recently, the ACC however takes credit in the number of convictions and out-of-court settlements that have brought billions of Leones to the state coffers.
However, it is terribly bad to see an investigative body being humbled by defence lawyers in court after weeks or months of evidence gathering.