By Septimus Senessie in Kono
A man has died in a police cell in Kono while awaiting charges for the alleged murder of another man.
Aiah Lavalie, 36, was a farmer and hunter at Sumbaidu Village in Nimiyama Chiefdom, in the eastern Sierra Leone district. He was accused of killing Sahr Ngaujah, 45, last week, after suspecting him of involvement in the theft of his piece of bush meat belonging.
Lavalie was found dead in the evening hours of Saturday, September 17, in a police cell at the Motema Police Division.
The police are treating his death as suicide. They said he used the T-shirt he was wearing to hang himself while they worked on completing his charge sheet and subsequent arraignment.
Lavalie admitted in an interview few hours before news of his death that he did kill Ngaujah.
Speaking to Politico at the time in the presence of Police officers, he said he killed Ngaujah for conniving with another man he named as Darboe whom he suspected had stolen his meat. He said that although Ngaujah wasn’t the actual thief, he had seen him heading to the direction where the stolen meat had been hidden. He then followed Ngaujah to ascertain his mission.
Lavalie said that on arrival at his destination, Ngaujah removed the stolen meat from one bag and placed it into another. He explained that at that point he rushed at his victim.
“I overpowered him and took his own cutlass from him and I began to lacerate him on his head and hands until he fell down, when I finally cut his throat,” Lavalie had explained.
Lavalie said that after killing Ngaujah, he rushed to the village and told the villagers what he had done and asked that he be taken to the police.
Postmortem examinations have since been conducted on both corpses.
The Medical Officer at the Government Hospital in Koidu, Dr. Mohamed Sheiku, told Politico that Lavalie was found to have died of “suffocation and strangulation” which occurred as a result of the cloth the victim had used to hang himself, “disallowing the free flow of oxygen into his body thereby resulting in his death.”
As for Sahr Ngaujah, Dr Sheiku said he died from the effect of “deep laceration wounds” he suffered on the left side of his neck, Sheku said.
The Crime Officer at the Motema Police Division, Inspector Mohamed Samura, told Politico that after obtaining a statement from Aiah Lavalie, he was locked up alone in one of their cells to allow for the conclusion of his statement before being charged to court.
Samura said in the evening hours of September 17 the Lockup Police Officer on duty reported to him that he’d seen Lavalie hanging, lifeless, with his T-shirt tied from his neck to the opening on the cell door that serves as ventilation.
Describing the situation as “unfortunate,” he said: “Aiah Lavalie took his own life basically to escape justice for the killing of Sahr Ngaujah.”
Copyright (c) Politico 2016
