By Umaru Fofana
The mother of the man detained by police for attempting to board an Air France plane at Lungi on 4 June allegedly with a matchbox, a cigarette lighter and petrol, says he is “mentally retarded”.
Yabo Warah Kanu says Ibrahim Kanu “has had a mental illness since childhood and the condition manifests itself from time to time”.
The 57-year-old woman told Politico that when her son started showing signs of the illness at the start of June, she sent him to her sister in Masiaka.
“My sister later called me to say that he had absconded and his whereabouts were unknown,” she said. All she later heard was a phone call on Sunday 5 June that her son had been brought to Freetown by police for an incident at the airport, according to her.
Police at the airport say the 31-year-old man gained access to the airside at the Freetown International Airport at Lungi through an unmanned entrance called the GM Gate. He then boarded the bus as checked-in passengers were being taken to board the aircraft. He was later spotted without a boarding pass, and was carrying a rucksack. On him were the inflammable items.
Yabo Warah said her son’s father lives in the United Kingdom and that he would shout that he wanted to join him, whenever his mental illness had taken the best of him.
“My son is not a terrorist and was not by himself when he was carrying all those items” she said, adding that she explained his condition to the police when she was invited to the headquarters of their Transnational Organised Crime Unit (TOCU).
She said Ibrahim went up to sixth form at the Rokel Secondary School but could not recall when he dropped out.
20 days since Ibrahim’s arrest he has not been charged and remains detained in a police cell at the headquarters of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID). This has drawn sharp criticism from rights activists who say his detention without trial is “illegal”.
Ibrahim Tommy of the Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law (CARL) says “even if Ibrahim is a terror suspect he must be brought before a court within the constitutionally-stipulated period of 10 days which has not been done”.
He told Politico that the man’s detention without trial for this long is “a blatant and an inexcusable violation of his rights”.
He said if investigations were still ongoing the suspect “must be brought before a court on holding charges but not kept in detention for this long”.
He called on the law enforcement authorities to “bring him before a court without further delay or release him”.
The head of TOCU, Chief Superintendent Musa Lappia says “investigations are still ongoing”. Asked whether it was normal to detain a suspect for almost three weeks without bringing them before a court, he said that depended on the nature of the case. He would not expatiate beyond saying that they would soon meet on the matter.
On whether they had taken Ibrahim to a psychiatrist to ascertain his mental condition, Lappia said he had heard nothing suggesting he was a mental case. However, a police officer at the CID headquarters told Politico that inmates had complained of the suspect’s “erratic behaviour” in the cell.
(C) Politico 23/06/16
