By Francis H. Murray
The body of five-year old Khadija Saccoh has been laid to rest at the Kissy Road cemetery. Her death in June sparked off street protests calling for justice amid allegations that she had been raped before she was killed.
The Hill Station Central Mosque became a pool of tears on Friday 22 January 2021 as hundreds of family members and sympathisers converged to say final prayers for the deceased.
First Lady Fatima Bio and the Deputy Inspector General of Police, Elizabeth Turay, were among the mourners.
The father of the deceased, Abubakarr Saccoh, who was resident in the United States at the time of the incident, was in tears standing over his daughter’s remains as prayers were being offered.
To say he looked distraught would be an understatement. He could barely talk.
Giving his reaction to the incident shortly before the start of prayers, Saccoh described the day as “sad” for their family and for the whole nation.
"It's a sad day for us as a family and we know it is also the same for every well-meaning Sierra Leonean. We know, as Muslims, what we're doing right now is not called for but because of the nature and cause of death for Khadija, we wanted to send a message out there to say that we want justice for her and justice for all the children in the nation", he added.
Upon his return during the festive season and following a visit to the Colombia Davies funeral home where the child’s body was kept, Saccoh requested for her to be buried, over concerns about the state of the remains.
Khadija’s death which was reported in June last year, caused outrage across the country with activists taking to the streets calling for a speedy investigation into her murder.
After months of police investigations, the police charged the matter to court with preliminary hearings held at the Pademba Road Magistrate Court in Freetown.
Government pathologist Dr. Simeon Owiz Koroma in his certified medical cause of death of the deceased, attributed it to neurogenic shock resulting from injured nerves, and concluded that her death was neither accidental nor suicidal. He contradicted an early autopsy that the girl had suffered from pneumonia saying he didn’t observe any signs of that. He went on that she was deprived of oxygen going through her brains as a result of manual strangulation, and confirmed that signs of virginity were absent on the deceased.
On 16 October 2020 the presiding Magistrate Mark Ngegba committed the matter to the High Court for trial after he rejected a no-case submission by defence lawyers.
The Magistrate noted: “In the absence of any other open cause of death, it is those who had custody of the deceased that should provide answers for her demise and they have not done so at all. In view of the forgoing, I hold that there is sufficient evidence to warrant the trial of each accused at the High Court for the offences charged’’.
The murder trial, assigned to Justice Monfred Sesay, is expected to start anytime soon.
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