By Allieu Sahid Tunkara
A hand writing expert attached to the Scientific Support Unit at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) headquarters in Freetown has testified at the court martial presided over by his Lordship, Alhaji Abu Bakarr King, that a signature contained in an alleged forged document did not belong to the accused.
After conducting forensic analysis on two different signature specimens, Joseph Abu Bakarr Sanu found that the signature in the letter purportedly written by the accused had dissimilarity with signatures collected from some other documents belonging to the accused, he told the court.
The accused, squadron Leader (Major) Philip Joseph Schenks is standing trial on two counts of forgery and conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline. The prosecution alleged that while the accused was in the UK on a date unknown between the 10th and 15th December 2012, the accused made a false study leave approval document being to his knowledge false in a material, particular time in that he inserted a false name and signature purporting to be the name and signature of the Director of Personnel in the Ministry of Defence.
The CID officer, Joseph Sanu, started his testimony on 9th June on behalf of the accused but failed to complete it owing to an objection raised by the prosecution counsel, Ishmail Philip Mamie. Mamie argued then that the defence counsel had failed to serve him the document which the expert witness was about to tender in evidence.
During that testimony, before been ordered to stand down from the witness box, Sanu informed the court that he received a letter of request to conduct forensic analysis on the signature of the accused on exhibit ‘G’ which was the letter of study leave approval allegedly forged by the accused.
On Thursday, during the last hearing, the witnessed continued his testimony after fulfilling the prosecution`s demand. He told the court that in compliance with the request from solicitors of the accused, he collected specimen signatures from several documents submitted by the accused, including his passport and bank slips, which he used for a comparative analysis.
Sanu told the court that he drew a chart to help him conduct his forensic analysis on the documents and that he worked with Woman Inspector Kadiatu Nyakoi of the same unit at the CID headquarters. After the forensic examination, the witness pointed out his observation that dissimilar features did exist between the signatures in the documents of the accused and the one in exhibit ‘G.’
“Since the features in the various documents are dissimilar, it indicates that those signatures mentioned above in my observation are not authored by the same person,” Sanu explained.
The result of the second forensic analysis was then tendered in court and marked exhibit ‘S.’
The forensic analyst had previously worked with Woman Inspector Kadiatu Nyakoi and both of them produced exhibit ‘D’, being the result of the first forensic examination on the signatures of the accused and done on behalf of the court.
In the cross examination by the prosecution counsel, the expert witness who said he had been operating as forensic analysts for about six years, explained the differences between exhibits ‘D’ and ‘S’. He said for exhibit ‘D’ he worked as an independent forensic analyst and later worked privately, on exhibit ‘S’ for the accused and that the money for the second service was paid into the Sierra Leone Police account.
In his response to further questions by the prosecution counsel, the witness said he was in contact with the accused throughout the forensic examination but could not tell the number of times they met. Sanu further stated that he did not obtain any specimen signature directly from the accused because those in the documents in the court were enough for his examination needs.
When the witness had completed his testimony, the prosecution counsel requested the court to give him two weeks to submit his final address.
Bail for the accused remains in force.
The matter comes up on Friday 2nd July.
(C) Politico 23/06/15
