By Umaru Fofana
Police in Bo last night arrested the convicted war criminal and former Kamajor Director of War, Moinina Fofana exactly one year after he had been conditionally released from a Rwandan prison.
As we went to press he was being prepared to be taken to Freetown for detention at the facilities of the Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone.
Assistant Inspector General of Police Mustapha Kamara told Politico that he was arrested around 7:00 PM last night “without resistance”.
In a public order on Wednesday, Justice Philip Nyamu Waki instructed the police to immediately arrest him. However, Deputy Inspector General of Police Richard Moigbeh told Politico early yesterday that the court had asked them to hold on until the detention facilities were ready.
He said a court official had gone to police headquarters on Wednesday regarding the detention of Fofana for allegedly breaching one of the terms of his conditional early release from a Rwandan prison, but that there were concerns that he could only be detained in a police cell which did not meet UN standards for its detainees.
Fofana, who was released in March last year to serve the rest of his jail term in Bo, had been convicted on four counts of war crimes committed during the civil war in Sierra Leone and sentenced to 15 years in prison. The conditions of his released included that he must reside in Bo, stay out of local politics and desist from threatening witnesses who had testified against him during the trial.
It is not immediately clear which one of his conditions he is alleged to be in breach of but sources say he was spotted in a footage at a political event late last year where people had gone to pledge a partisan loyalty of sort.
If convicted at a trial scheduled to start within seven days, he could be sent back to jail to serve out his remaining term which ends in May 2018.
Already Justice Vivian M. Solomon has been assigned to the matter while defence lawyer Ibrahim Yillah and a prosecutor have also been alerted.
The caveat to Moinina’s release state that “In the event that he violates any Conditions of his Early Release…the order for Conditional Early Release may be revoked and an order for re imprisonment for the time remaining on his sentence may be issued”.
A source who should know says: “Because the other [war crimes] courts were not in the country where the crimes took place, any release, early or not, was final. [But] the Special Court is the first to have Conditional Early Release, where a prisoner can be reintegrated into his community and he can be monitored to ensure that there are no problems with victims and former witnesses. Fofana was the first to benefit from this.”
