By Musa Paul Feika
Mohamed Conteh, alias Jahanama Fire, and two others charged with the offence of murder and obtaining money by false pretences, during last Thursday’s proceedings at the Ross Road Magistrate Court No.1, which is presided over by Magistrate Alhaji Suliaman Koroma, told the court that he gave twenty three million leones to the investigating officers, both at Ross Road and Waterloo Police Stations, in order to resolve the matter amicably at the two stations.
The accused made this disclosure during cross examination by the witness, Tamba Koroma, the youth headman and a community teacher at Magbafeth Village, on the outskirts of Freetown.
He furthered that the statements that were obtained from him, both at the two police stations, were torture statements.
The witness, Tamba Koroma, told the court that he recognized all the accused, Mohamed Conteh, alias Jahanama Fire, Maxwell Brown, aka Bigger, and Santigie Kargbo, aka Popay, and he also recalled Tuesday 25th February 2020.
The witness continued that, on that fateful night, he was in bed sleeping when the eyewitness, Mohamed Taylor, who had earlier testified in court, knocked at his door and gave him information that he saw the accused killing someone in the nearby bush.
According to the witness, he informed Ansumana Kargbo, the youths Chairman of Magbafeth Village, who alerted the other youths in the village and all of them rushed to the scene.
He said, upon their arrival at the scene, they discovered a covered pit and, according to him, the youth Chairman told them to dig it open, adding that they discovered three corpses inside the pit.
The witness added that the second accused, Maxwell Brown, was arrested within the environs with a bag containing a telephone which, he said, was handed over to him.
The witness rounded up his testimony by stating that the accused were taken to the Waterloo Police Station and subsequently Ross Road Police Station where statements were obtained from them.
The police charge sheet indicates that Mohamed Conteh and two others, on Tuesday, 25th February this year, in the Waterloo Rural District in the Western Area of the Republic of Sierra Leone, murdered three Guinean nationals and at the same time, with intent to defraud and obtain forty million leones (Le 40,000,000) from the complainant, Sorieba Conteh, pretended that he would prevent him from evil spirits knowing the same to be false.
All accused were denied bail and remanded at the Pademba Road Correctional Service.
The matter comes up on the 17th April, 2020.