PHOTO: Suspect (in blue trousers) and in handcuff at the court
By Garmah Never Lomo, garmahlomo@gmail.com
TEMPLE OF JUSTICE, Monrovia- A 52-year-old man, Edwin Freeman appeared in court on Wednesday in Liberian capital for allegedly sodomizing a boy, 13.
Handcuffed, the defendant was escorted by officers of the Monrovia City Court presided over by Judge Jomah Jallah on September 2, 2020.
According to police charge sheet, on August 22, 2020, the father of the survivor reported to the women and children protection section of the Liberia National Police in the Monrovia suburb of Congo Town that his won was allegedly sodomized by Defendant Edwin Freeman.
During an interview with the rape survivor, he freely informed police investigators in the presence of his father that on Saturday August 22, 2020, while and he and his sister were playing in the yard, he later told his sister that he was going to use the bathroom. After that, his sister asked him to take a bucket of water to the defendant for him to clean a mess of vomit, because he was drunk at the time.
The 13-year-old boy explained that when he took the water to the 52-year-old man, the defendant gave him L$50 to buy an additional bucket of water, in order to complete cleaning the mess.
But while leaving the defendant’s room, the defendant (Emmanuel Freeman) told him to sit near him on the bed, after which the man started kissing him.
When the defendant started to kiss him, he immediately told him to stop but the boy was told to close his mouth, something the child refused to do.
That angered Freeman, who later gave him a hit on his back, an action the man followed by putting his penis in the boy’s anus, prompting the child to yell and called for help from neighbors.
For his part, defendant Edwin Freeman told the Monrovia City Court that the boy’s parents, who were tenants in house, earlier had misunderstanding with him, causing them lie on him accusing him of Sodomizing the boy.
Mr. Freeman said ‘’these days when tried to get at you and no way to get you, the next thing is to say you rape their relative” but added that “God is the Judge”.
Defendant Freeman further told the court that he is willing to go to jail for even life imprisonment, but denied that he sodomized the boy, while admitting that he was drunk and he did send the boy for water.
It was established that the 13-year-old boy was sodomized, according to medical report from the Hope of Women International operated by Liberia’s Health Minister Dr. Willimena Jallah in the Paynesville suburb of Monrovia.
Defendant Freeman has accordingly been charged in line with Chapter 14 section 14. 70 of the New penal code of the Republic of Liberia and he has been remanded at the Monrovia Central Prison as the trial goes on.