By Politico Staff Writer
Justice Adrian Fisher has sentenced Fatmata Kamara to 24 years, after being found guilty of Manslaughter by throwing her newborn baby in a pit toilet.
The mother was said to have been convicted weeks ago and her judgment was delivered on the 19th of September, 2023 at the main Law Courts Building, Freetown.
She was first accused of murder contrary to Law and she pleaded not guilty, but the particulars of offence revealed that on the 20th day of October 2019 in Freetown, the accused murdered her newborn baby which charge was later reduced to manslaughter by the prosecution.
Addressing the Court, Justice Fisher noted that a newborn baby was discovered in a pit toilet on the 20th day of October 2019. He said neighbors went to the scene after an alarm had been raised by one Kumba and the accused was there but didn’t tell anyone that the newborn baby was her own child.
He stated that upon the arrival of a police officer at the scene, he noticed blood on the accused and immediately arrested her for further investigation. When interviewed by the police, she said whilst pregnant, she went to attend to nature in the same pit toilet.
“When I went to use the toilet, the child came out of my vagina and later fell into the pit,” said Kamara.
According to Justice Fisher, accused Kamara explained that during the process of attending to nature, she heard the child crying in the toilet and failed to report or raise alarm.
“You rather abandoned the child in the toilet and went to your room without informing anyone,” he said, adding that, “you pleaded not guilty to Murder but the Prosecution accepted a plea of Manslaughter.”
He further said that as a mother of three, it is rather troubling, to say the least, that having had three children she would act in this way.
In her statement, Kamara told the Court that she was not happy with the pregnancy because the man she got pregnant for was a married man. She added that she used different medications to abort the pregnancy but to no avail.
Justice Fisher said the statement of the accused was false.
“In a chilling manner, you told the police that you felt stomach pain and went to use the toilet and at that stage, you felt the child coming out. You threw the placenta cord and pushed the baby into the pit toilet.”
The Judge went on to state that the baby must have suffered for long in distress and pain without food before he was finally rescued after some hours. He said the victim was a defenseless newborn baby and the killing represented a gross breach of trust.
“I treat this aspect of the case as a single aggravating factor deriving from the relationship of a mother to her own child. Having considered all the evidence about the death of this young baby, and how his death was occasioned I consider that the degree of harm you intended fell in the high spectrum of culpability,” he said.
Copyright (2023) Politico (20/09/23)
