By Francis H. Murray
Magistrate Hannah Bonnie has admitted 37 year old Festus Bob, accused of robbery to a Le 100,000,000 bail or two sureties with one owing a property situated in Freetown of not less than Le 500,000,000 value.
Led in evidence A.S.P I. S Mansaray the alleged victim Abdul Rahman Kargbo, a business man told the court he recalled that he was at his construction site at Baw Baw village when he saw two men wanting to do stone mining on his site. He said after interrogating them for a while, the accused came along and began using abusive words against him and put a call through after which a large crowd appeared with some holding stones, cutlasses and sticks.
Kargbo said ‘‘the accused and his boys rushed at me and beat me up to the extent that I ran for my life in serious pain. They took my brown bag that contained Le 10 million cash with which I wanted to buy building materials. The accused took away my personal belongings all to the total value of Le 47, 200,000 so I reported the matter to the police at Lumley.”
Earlier the first prosecution witness Detective Police Constable 12037 Abdul Razak Benson attached to the anti-robbery unit, Freetown West recalled being on duty on Tuesday 2nd June 2020 when the complainant Abdul Rahman Kargbo along with Mohamed Sankoh, and Musa Keita arrived at the station and filed a complaint.
He said he recorded their report of robbery with aggravation in the police crime diary followed by the issuance of a police medical request form to the complainant for the Lumley hospital.
He said together with Detective Superintendent 8810 Jalloh S. N. he obtained a statement from the complainant backed by the endorsed police medical paper the following day which had been in the custody of the police since.
Benson added that on the 5th June 2020, he and other officers obtained statements from one Adama Sesay and Mohamed Kamara, adding that upon a phone call from Superintendent Moijoi, the accused person came to the station and a contemporaneous caution statement was obtained from him followed by a charge statement. He continued that the accused was charged with conspiracy, robbery with aggravation and assault occasioning to actual bodily harm.
In his cross examination of Constable Benson, lawyer Hindolo Gevao argued that the witness in his charged statement noted among others wounding with intent which was later not among the charges finally proffered against his client.
The witness answered that at the time the charges were made against the accused, investigation was still ongoing and that based on the evidence gathered after the endorsed medical request form was returned, it was stated that the accused assaulted the complainant.
The witness said he was made to understand by both the accused and the complainant that the confrontation they had was over a piece of land and that he did not refer them to the appropriate syndicate in the Sierra Leone police that handled such cases but rather advised them to do so.
Benson also answered to the question raised by Lawyer Gevao on the outcome of the search warrant conducted at the residence of the accused, noting that nothing of police interest was found.
He confirmed that no machete was found on the accused on the day of the incident but that the youths he brought had machete on them, stressing that the accused during the time of verbal confrontation did not assault the complainant until after the arrival of the youths at the scene.
He added that the accused told the police that he was assaulted by the complainant before the arrival of the youths.
The matter was adjourned to the 25th June 2020
Copyright © 2020 Politico Online
