By Jane B. Mansaray.
“Some Jurors in Sierra Leone have no integrity, and since my practice as a Lawyer for over ten years, I don`t believe in a trial by Jury”, Anti-Corruption Commissioner Francis Ben Kaifala said on SLBC Morning Coffee program yesterday presented by Salmata Bah and Raymond Fox.
The ACC Boss made the statement when he was commenting on the successes and challenges of his three years leadership of the ACC.
The issue of Jurors came in when the Commissioner was responding to questions with regards to the discharge of the former Minister of Basic and Senior Secondary Education (MBSSE) in the donor rice scandal.
According to Ben Kaifala, the alleged rice matter which was meant for the school feeding program was investigated by the ACC and and charged to court for trial.
At the High Court, Commissioner Ben Kaifala said, the Attorney General refused ACC with a fiat to prosecute the matter by Judge alone, and based on that refusal, they at the ACC applied for trial by a Judge and Jury in compliance with the directives of the Chief Justice; which for all intent and purpose, has never happened in all ACC court cases.
The application was refused by the Presiding Judge, Justice Cosmotina Jarrett, who later discharged all the accused persons including senior staffs of MBSSE for lack of prosecution witnesses.
In that radio interview, the Commissioner made reference to the pending New York Chancery renovation investigations of which several persons including Dr. Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara, former Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and 2018 election flag bearer of the main opposition All People’s Congress (APC) party, other past and present government officials are to be interviewed by the ACC.
