By William Selmah,wselmah@email.com
Reports from Freetown, Sierra Leone says vocal Liberian radio talk show host, Henry Costa has departed the country, after the government there apparently turned down an extradition request to stand trial on claims by authorities of the Liberia Immigration Service (LIS) that he had falsified a travel document.
On Wednesday, January 15, 2020, Liberia’s Information Minister, Lenn Eugene Nagbe confirmed that the CDC government of President George Weah had sent a Diplomatic Note to Sierra Leone requesting that the fierce critic of the Weah government be handed over to Liberia.
Mr. Costa, who is leader of the Council of Patriots that organized two anti-CDC government protests in Monrovia, was being held in Sierra Leone on request of the LIS.
He is said to have left early Thursday morning aboard a Royal Air Maroc flight headed for the U.S. where he has been based prior to his return home in late 2019.
Mr. Costa had maintained that the laissez passer on which he traveled from Ghana to Liberia was never forged as claimed by LIS authorities, but swapped by them in order to build a case against him.
The lawyer representing Costa, Abdul Kharim Koroma, had told the BBC that extraditing his client would have constituted a breach of international human rights, as he feels “his life would be in imminent danger”.
He said Wednesday that “I have challenged them on grounds that the detention itself is controversial and illegal and in fact they should not attempt to send him back to Monrovia because according to Mr. Costa himself, his life would be in imminent danger”, were he sent back.
He said he also reminded the Government of Sierra Leone “about our obligation under international law” in relations to returning a person to a country where he thinks his life is not safe.
On the extradition request from the Liberian Government to its Sierra Leonean counterpart, Sierra Leone’s Information Minister Mohammed Swaray said they were a democracy and a sovereign state and can therefore take instruction from no other government.
Their paramount concern, he asserted, is to ensure that Costa enjoys his full rights and that he is well treated.
Minister Swaray said: “We just want to ensure that we fulfill his rights, he himself can attest to that, he’s been very well treated, and we cannot take dictation from any other government, we are a democracy.”
“We are doing what we need to do now and soon we will do what’s right without compromising or jeopardizing our credentials as a democratic, freedom-loving and accountable administration” Swaray said amidst mounting calls by civil society institutions to block Costa’s extradition and to instead restore his liberty.
A consortium of CSOs held a joint news conference Wednesday in Freetown calling on their government calling on CSO: “We believe that Mr. Costa’s right to demonstrate is guaranteed under both Liberian and international law, and we strongly condemn the Liberian government’s attempts to punish him for exercising his right,” the CSOs said.