By Francis H. Murray
Magistrate Hannah Bonnie has admitted former Social Welfare Minister, Dr. Sylvia Blyden to a 500 million Leone bail with two sureties resident in Freetown. One of the sureties should own property worth not less than one billion Leones with a building permit subject to the approval of the Master and Registrar of the High court.
Blyden made her second appearance on Thursday to face preliminary investigations into a 10 count charge of seditious and defamatory libel, false publication and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. The state is alleging that Blyden, ‘‘on diverse’’ dates published defamatory statements against President Bio and the country. Statements “considered likely to injure the reputation of the president and the country.”
The former minister who is representing herself requested the court to make her charge sheet available to her, arguing that it was constitutional for all accused persons to be given access to such a document for them to “properly understand the offences for which they are charged.”
The newly assigned State prosecutor Y. I Sesay pleaded for an adjournment to prepare his witnesses and proceed with the matter.
The accused in her plea for bail told the court that she was a member of the country’s National Security Council while she served as Minister of Social Welfare, which put her in a position to understand matters of national security for which her last plea for bail was denied. She added that the prosecution has made a second appearance in court without any witnesses and that, according to her went against the need to treat matters of national security with urgency.
Blyden pleaded that one of the bail conditions which required her to produce a building permit be revisited on the grounds that the said building had been constructed over 50 years and that a building permit for such building was no longer available.
Blyden’s bail conditions apply to the second accused Hussain Muckson Sesay, a third-year Engineering student of Fourah Bay College with whom she’s jointly charged.
Blyden’s plea for the magistrate to allow ‘‘maximum publicity’’ to be given to her hearings was rejected and the matter adjourned to the 3rd June 2020.
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