By Mabinty M. Kamara
Journalist Sallieu Tejan Jalloh was released last night after he had been detained on Monday night. Police say he was arrested after he sent a text message to the Chief Minister, Professor David Francis to clarify allegations that he received US$ 1.5 million payment from SL Mining.
Jalloh said he was arrested by plain-clothed policemen from the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) who “tricked me to follow them outside before they arrested me”.
He said: “I got a call from someone who said he had an advert placement…but needed direction to drop the advert to the office”. He said that after directing the caller to his office, two unknown men came to him but that they had left the advert on a flash drive inside the car”.
Tejan-Jalloh said they asked him to follow them to the car to collect the document. “They never identified themselves as police officers nor did they tell me I was under arrest until we were close to the car when one of them held me from the back saying I was under arrest,” he explained on Tuesday while in police custody.
The Sierra Leone Association of Journalists condemned the arrest on Tuesday. Secretary General of the association, Asmieu Bah urged the police to speed up the investigation and free Jalloh as soon as possible.
“It is unheard of for a journalist to be arrested and detained over a text message sent to seek clarification on a story he is investigating” bah told Politico.
He added: “This is strange and we strongly condemn his arrest and urge the police to either release him on bail or charge the matter to court as soon as possible”.
ECOBANK, the bank where the alleged bribe was said to have been paid into, said the Chief Minister had never operated an account with them. A senior official there said that Prof Francis only had a prepaid XPress Card which was on zero balance and he had never used. This point was corroborated by the CID, whose head, Chief Superintendent John Alpha said they saw no evidence of any such a bank account.
In a press release on Tuesday, S L Mining denied any allegations of paying any money to Prof. Francis.
“SL Mining confirms that such a payment does not exist and wants to take this opportunity to reiterate that it has always complied and continues to comply with all laws, both local and international, and with SL Mining’s own strict anti-bribery and other policies”, the release said.
A statement from the Chief Minister’s office late on Tuesday evening also denied the allegations. It also categorically denies that the minister ordered the arrest of the journalist.
“Professor David Francis did not give any instruction for the detention of journalist but however strongly believes that the police should carry out criminal investigations on serious allegations without undue pressure,” the statement partly reads.
© 2019 Politico Online
