The judge of the First Circuit Court in River Gee Country found two persons liable for the murder of Abdullai Bah, a Guinean motorcyclist whose blood-drained body was discovered recently in River Gee County.

But strangely enough, according to reports from the county, the judge neglected taking the convicts to the Supreme Court for the affirmation or rejection of the verdict and, if affirmed, up to the President of Liberia for the probable signing of the death warrant or jail term. Instead, it unilaterally sentenced one of the convicts to death by hanging.

Now the court is hunting one additional suspect, some say in an effort trap Liberia’s European Ambassador Conmany B. Wesseh (PICTURED).

“But is the sentence legally executable?” is the question many are asking as Wesseh and others fight frantically to save the condemned man from the gallows. The Analyst, reports.
 
Ambassador Conmany Wesseh has strongly condemned as “the gravest travesty of justice he had seen in his life” the handling of the verdict in, the political conspiracy, and post-trial statements made in the murder case recently concluded in River Gee County. 

The Ambassador has therefore resolved to fight legally the travesty, which observers say amounts to jungle justice in a Liberia that many say has transformed significantly, legally, to uphold the rule law and make justice available and affordable.

Amb. Wesseh said he would not only seek the reversal of all judgment rendered against the condemned convict, Paramount Chief Darpu, but that he would ensure that Boye Wesseh, who was being hunted by the court for trial in connection with the murder, was either left alone or accorded the due process of law.

The well-known and respected social justice advocate was, over the weekend, speaking to dozens of well-wishers and family members who had gathered at his Du Port Road Residence to welcome him back home over the weekend after his six-week long absence to South Africa. 

If the state must arrest Boye Wesseh for whatever cause it is claiming, he said, it must make sure to accord him the due process of the law by first making a legal arrest and adducing prima facie evidence. After this, he said, the state or whoever acting in its behalf must ensure that he is tried speedily in a court of competent jurisdiction as provided for in Liberia’s criminal justice system.   Amb. Wesseh said he was outlining these steps because he was not sure the condemned paramount chief got the courtesy of a due process of the law.

The court is hunting Boye Wesseh for allegedly playing what reports called a critical role in the murder of Abdullai Bah.  Reports said Amb Wesseh has assumed the strong justice stance to prevent his family members and individuals associated with him from being unduly harassed and intimated on trumped-up charges, conspiracy, and scandalization, through which some say his political opponents have been scheming and hoping to get at him.

According to the reports, which The Analyst could not authenticate, the court convicted Paramount Chief Darpu and gave Enoch Jasper, the co-accused-turned state witness a lesser 5-year jail sentence because the former failed to implicate Amb. Wesseh.  

State witness Abraham Karnwaen, reportedly told the trial court that it was Boye Wesseh, an alleged driver and blood-relative of Amb Wesseh, who requested the extraction of victim Bah’s blood and body parts.

But Amb Wesseh dismissed the testimonies and the court’s verdict as products of conspiracy and scandal and vowed not only to save the reputation and lives of those accused but to put the whole criminal justice system to the test. He said he intends exposing the wickedness that allows innocent people in Liberia to be found guilty for crimes they did not commit while the real criminals go scot-free.

At the welcoming traditional cola presentation ceremony, Mr. Philip Nyenuh, the Vice Chairman of Paypaye for Development, expressed shock over the news that conspiracy was being hatched to link Amb Wesseh to the murder of motorcyclist Bah.

Witnesses say speaker after speaker at the ceremony accused River Gee Senator Nathaniel Williams of masterminding the conspiracy, which they described as “devilish and wicked machination” to tarnish Wesseh’s name for political reasons. 

They reportedly spoke of efforts made during the trial by Senator Nathaniel Williams and his cohorts to get the accused to mention the name of Ambassador Wesseh as the person who sent them to commit the crime. 

“Williams promised them freedom if they only implicated Ambassador Wesseh,” one speaker at Wesseh’s welcome ceremony alleged.

In his response, Ambassador Wesseh said that he was aware of the Williams’ criminal machination, but was saddened by the weaknesses in the police, the Justice Ministry, and the courts that have made it possible for baseless, unfounded, and shameless accusations to be used to convict innocent people as the case of the Paramount Chief Darpu. 

He condemned the “reckless and very false” conjectures made by an “incompetent prosecutor” sent to River Gee who caused to be published in the media that his (Wesseh’s) driver (Boye Wesseh) was wanted in connection with the case.  Exuding all confidence, Ambassador Wesseh challenged the police and the entire criminal justice system to produce any iota of evidence linking him or anyone related to him to the murder.

He said was confident to pose the challenges because those hunting Boye Wesseh were doing so on false assumptions. The first of the false assumptions, he said, was that he has no driver called Boye Wesseh.

“Secondly, there is not a single evidence against the condemned Paramount Chief that he has been any linked to the murder except that he refused pressure by certain elements to have him (Wesseh) implicated in the act.

Thirdly, the Judge Williams is simply a spineless weakling who does not have any courage to pursue the truth and justice and who has been working at the whims and caprices of Nathaniel Williams,” Amb. Wesseh reportedly told the welcoming party.

The Liberian ambassador to Europe has meanwhile called on the Ministry of Justice to open a full-scale investigation into the major transgressions in the case in order to forestall what he said promises to be an unpardonable travesty of justice and a dangerous blot in the legal history of Liberia.

County traditionalist observers say part of the “bad-blood” between the Senator and the Ambassador relates to the fact that although Senator Williams won Mr. Wesseh in the River Gee Senatorial Bye-elections in February this year, River Gee citizens in the county and in Monrovia have not been according him as much honor as they do Mr. Wesseh.

“Mr. Williams has been refused the traditional cola by the chiefs and elders of his home District of Potupoh; he only receives scorn among his peers. This makes Senator Williams to accuse Ambassador Wesseh of being responsible for the disregard that attended him and to vow to get even,” said another speaker.

Mr. Boye Wesseh, has threatened to sue Mr. Nkrumah Teekay, the Justice Ministry official who caused the “publication of the criminal lies” that he Boye played a part in the murder. Boye said he was innocent of the allegations contained in the publication as he was never been called by the police in this matter, nor neither does he drive for Ambassador Wesseh.

A local radio station has quoted the First Circuit Court of River Gee as vowing to make the necessary impact by ensuring that Ambassador Wesseh turns in his driver to face justice. The court said the driver would be brought to justice no matter where he may be or who would shield him. It then threatened to subpoena Amb Wesseh to present the accused if he failed to avail himself for prosecution.

Meanwhile, the First Judicial Circuit Court in Fish Town, River Gee has sentenced Paramount Chief Wilson Darpoh of Matuaken Chiefdom to death by hanging.  A local radio station report said the sentence was passed on Monday in connection with the brutal murder of Guinean motorcyclist Bah.

State prosecutor, Attorney Nkrumah Teekay, said the Paramount Chief is scheduled to be hanged on or before Jan. 21, 2010. An accomplice crime buster in the murder of the motorcyclist, Enoch Jasper, was also sentenced to five years in prison, the station reported. 

Legal observers, who spoke with The Analyst yesterday, dismissed the River Gee trial, especially regarding the death sentence and scheduled execution, as “a circus drama or nightmare that will pass away on its own turn”.

“All the state needs to do is to recall that judge and scrape him of his credentials,” said one human rights lawer who said it was too early to comment on what was  reportedly unfolding in Liberia’s tiny southeastern River Gee County. That sentence is not executable,” he said.