By Saio Marrah
Alpha Barrie, the regional manager of Rokel Commercial Bank in the south has testified in court that the first accused, Mohamed Arafat S. Munda in a preliminary investigation into a case of fraud involving his institution, confessed to tampering with the account of a deceased customer but that he was not alone.
The witness told a magistrate in Freetown on Monday 9th October 2023, when he was tendering an audit trail produced by the bank to demonstrate that the first accused’s staff pin code was shown to be the person that tampered with the account.
According to the branch manager after the finding by the cyber department of the bank, he invited the first accused and the head of operations to his office, where he told them what the audit trail revealed. He said it was at that point the first accused confessed to committing the offence.
He said the first accused mentioned the name of the third accused as the person who was involved in the deal. He said the first accused then mentioned the name of the third accused who was then arrested by the police.
Under cross-examination by Lawyer Hindolo Gevao, the witness told the court that he did not see the first accused withdrawing the money from the account. He also said he could not ascertain where the withdrawal took place because it was done electronically as the audit trail indicated that a mobile phone was used to withdraw the money after the first accused had tampered with the account by changing the code of the account, which then gave access to the account for the mobile phone transactions to take place.
Responding to questions from Lawyer Claudius Campbell, representing the second accused, the witness told the court that the one-time password generated by the bank would give someone access to transfer money.
The first accused and two others are charged with conspiracy while the first accused is separately charged with 18 counts of larceny by a servant and causing money to be paid to another with intent to defraud.
The case resumes on the 16th of October this year.
Copyright (c) 2023 Politico (11/10/23)
