By Prince J Musa in Kenema
Detective Inspector James Junisa of the Eastern Region Division of the Criminal Investigation Department in Kenema is under investigation after he was briefly detained for fighting his bosses over disagreement on the handling of a case.
Momoh Bebeh Vandi, Deputy Regional Crime Inspector, told Politico that Junisa assaulted him and other senior officers in an effort to resist attempt to reassign a case from him, which he had assumed without authority. Vanid said they later found out that Junisa was drunk at the time.
The incident which occurred last Thursday started when a complainant, Sudie Hassan, walked into the station to file a complaint about her missing goat.
“One of the officers at the CID was to be assigned to the case to obtain statement, when Inspector Junisa jumped into the matter and said he had to investigate the case forcefully, even though it was not assigned to him. He then took the complainant to the scene of crime were the goat was tied before it got missing,” Vandi explained.
He added that later Junisa returned to the station with a boy he said was a suspect in the case. Vandi said it was at this point that they realized that he (Junisa) was drunk.
According to the Crime Officer, that was the point when he tried to take the case away from Junisa and assign it to someone else.
“Inspector Junisa was using abusive words on the complainant. I tried to caution him to stop abusing the woman (Sudie Hassan), but he could not listen and he started abusing my mother,” Vandi further explained.
He went on: “Other colleagues came in to stop him but he was arrogant and went into confrontation by fighting with us at the office. We tried to arrest him to place him in a cell, but to no avail, until more senior officers came in.”
Mrs Hassan also told Politico: “I came to make a report for one of my missing goats, but this officer Junisa was arrogant in his approach.”
Junisa was later arrested, detained and then released.
Sources say he travelled to Freetown. Politico couldn’t reach him for a comment on the allegations against him.
In the aftermath of the incident, the husband of the complainant, Hassan Kamara, threatened to sue Inspector Junisa for his conduct against his wife.
Politico later asked the Police on what they would do to deal with the fallout of the incident. The Police spokesman in the district, Detective Amara Mangor, said: “As it is, the matter will be looked into properly to ascertain the root cause of this misbehavior, since it involves a senior police officer. Because the police have internal disciplinary wing that will handle matters that deals with police personnel.”
Some other officers who know Junisa told Politico that this is not the first time this is happening with him. They said he had been transferred in the past from different posts because of similar behavior.
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