By Garmah Never Lomo,garmahlomo@gmail.com
Criminal Court C at the Temple of Justice in Monrovia has issued a subpoena Ad-testificandum on the Armed Forces of Liberia Chief of staff Major Gen. Prince C. Johnson, III and his Deputy General Geroline Janet George, Captain Waka to appear in court to testify in the alleged corruption case involving former Defense Minister Brownie J. Samukai and other Defense officials in the former regime.
They are to appear on Friday.
The court has also subpoena Eco Bank Liberia to appear in court and testify based on the witnesses testimonies in open court.
The subpoena Ad-testificandum was issued based on a request made by state lawyers headed by Cllr. Arthur T. Johnson for the management of Eco bank Liberia to appear in court and produce the bank statements, requisition emanating from Ministry of National Defense A/C #10929522222019 titled AFL pension funds which later change to AFL welfare and Morale account A/C #0013174717655601 covering the period July 2009 up to and including November 3,2017 including the account opening /know your customer and also request of transferring to the Ministry of National Defense Ministry’s account for AFL operations.
The operation includes all cheques that were written on said account during the period mentioned Supra.
However, state lawyers first and second witnesses took the stand to testify on behalf of the state.
State prosecution first witness, Augustine S. Mehn, who is an investigator of the Liberia Anti-corruption Commission and Marc N. Kollie, Chief investigator of LACC, said the purpose for which account was opened never benefited any of men and women of the AFL; but rather for the personal use of the Defendants.
Witness Mehn’s testimony in court said, their investigation necessitated from a publication made by Front page Africa vol 12, No 14 captioned: Brownie Samukai admitting to wasteful spending of AFL welfare and Supplementary on January 19, 2018.
Based upon this caption by a local daily, Front Page Africa, the LACC made an investigative accessment into the allegation of the newspaper and after the assessment investigation findings were submitted to the Broad of commissioner at LACC for their approval.
Witness Mehn further disclosed that when the broad of commissioner approval were met, they proceeded with the Ministry of Defense as to whether they were in the know of the newspaper publication and that they said yes something that led the LACC to invite them and Eco bank for questioning.
He said financial documents during the investigation, showed that the former Defense Minister Brownie Samukai was signatory A, while the then controller J. Nyumah Dorkor was signatory B to the account and they (Samukai and Dorkor and others) never contributed to it.
The witness who took stand testified that it was observed that monies were deducted from the account some 20,000, 30,000, and 10,000 United States dollars and Ex-Defense Minister and the rest of the Defendants signature reflected that they were withdrawing the monies.
The witness was therefore cross examined by Alfred Sayeh.
Former Defense Minister J. Brownie Samukai, Joseph P. Johnson, J. Nyumah Dorkor and others to be identified were indicted by Grand jurors of Montserrado County for the alleged crimes theft of property, criminal conspiracy, economic Sabotage and money laundering.