By Thaimu Sankoh.
Police Sergeant 9550 Sewa Bambamdu Turay formally attached to the Lumbley Police Station in the Western Rural District of Sierra Leone and family are currently on the run to save their lives after Turay refused to act on an unlawful and unconstitutional orders from his police bosses.
Talking to this medium in a telephone interview Sergeant Sewa Bambamdu Turay disclosed that his bosses are after his life and that of his family because he refused to lead a team of police officers to demolish the house of an opposition parliamentarian.
“After the August 10th 2022 violent protest in which many people lost their lives including security personnel’. The Sierra Leone Police made hundreds of arrests and also published photos of people they say were the perpetrators behind the protest. Many people were captured in their homes while others who were peacefully going about their businesses were arrested on several dates after the protest.”
“Over 200 people were locked up in cells at the Lumbley Police Station, many of whom were arrested in their homes on baseless accusations. The government ordered the police internally to ensure everyone arrested faces the law whether guilty or not. I was ordered by my bosses to lead a team of Police officers to demolish the houses of persons in custody and a certain opposition parliamentarian. I refused the order because it was too risky to carry out such order and as a police officer my duty is to protect lives and properties not to destroy them.”
“Because of this I was locked up in cell for days and received inhuman and degrading treatments. They promise to squeeze the life out of me, bury my remains and wiped out my family.”
“Some days later I was rescued by a friend who asked me to flee the country to save my life. As things stand I am out of the country not wanting to return home because I might be killed. My wife Kadiatu Turay and children are nowhere to be found, my brother Lahai Turay is in Liberia and sister Mantenneh Turay in Holland fearing to come home.” He concluded.
Sierra Leone is one of the poorest nations in the world and has gone through eleven years of brutal civil war from 1991 – 2002. The relics of the war still remained physically and mentally in the minds of people, especially those above age twenty-eight. Sadly enough, most of the root causes of the war are still prevalent, such as political intimidation, political killings, arbitrary arrests and detentions, injustice, suppression of freedom of speech and assembly and the right to protest. Recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission are yet to be adhered to by successive governments prompting many to assume that the outbreak of another war is not farfetched.
All efforts by this medium to get the side of the police proved unsuccessful
