By Garmah Never Lomo,garmahlomo@gmail.com
The fate of Senator Varney Sherman, former House Speaker Alex Tyler and others hang in the balance, as the Criminal Court ‘C’ at the Temple of Justice in Monrovia has set next Tuesday, July 30, 2019 for handing down of the verdict in the US$950 Sable Mining bribery case.
At 2PM next Tuesday, the Court is set to give the final judgement of the Indictees in the long-awaited bribery case that started during the former regime of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. The defendants are accused of illegally trying to change the country’s procurement law for the company to enable the company to exploit the Wologisi Mountain in Lofa County.
The case grew out of an investigation done by the London-based rights campaign group, Global Witness which unearthed an alleged bribery scandal linking Senator Sherman and others.
The Court after listening to arguments between both the prosecution and defense lawyers on Monday, July 22, 2019, Criminal Court C Judge Peter W. Gbeneweleh said he will review all the necessary documents and make a determination as Judge of facts and Judge of the law.
Judge Gbeneweleh said he will take judicial notice of all the law citation quoted during hearing of the matter.
During the final argument of the case,, the lawyer representing the legal interest of Senator Varney Sherman and all others defendants Cllr. Cyril Jones said the crime of economic sabotage should be ignored in this proceedings, because, economic sabotage deals mismanagement of public funds.
He said this is something his client, Senator Sherman and others did not do but rather he senator Sherman served as lawyer to sable mining, when Delta Mining took the government of Liberia to court for breach of contract but later, the matter was withdrawn by the government.
Both Delta mining and sable mining emerged at that time adding on the PPCC draft law, sable mining was number eleven on the list for Wologisi Mountain. And the draft was already concluded in 2009 in the annual report and therefore, there was no need for bribery when the draft was already concluded.
During his argument, Cllr. Jones disclosed that his client senator Sherman and others were indicted on mere allegation. Indicating that Wologibi Mountain was a competitive bidding, he wondered why would someone want to bribe when the draft was completed already.
Defend lawyer, Cllr. Jones furthered argued that all the allegations and testimonies given by prosecutions witnesses against their clients were all hearsay and there were no evidence to substantiate their allegations.
Cllr. Jones added that the allegation about the draft law was a myth belief and the signature contained in the affidavit was not authenticated through the embassy of South Africa and it was lacking with high court judge in accordance with the Hague convention of 1961.
Another defend Cllr. In person of Johnny Momoh said the Republic of Liberia or state prosecution have the burden to prove beyond all reasonable doubt as contained in the indictment.
Cllr. Momoh argued that email is not by law adding that if prosecution alleged that portion of the draft was inserted, there must be a different to show that indeed something went wrong.
He said both Marc Kollie and Blamo Kofa testimonies were based on Global witness report, questioning prosecution how can you indict someone without evidence and the testimonies of both Mark Kollie and Blamo testimonies was based on a leak emails and spreadsheets.
Defend lawyer Momoh said that leaked emails originated from an unknown source which is not back by law adding that Global witness report was based on hearsay, but not facts.
Meanwhile, state prosecutors during their final argument said, all the emails exchanges by both Cllr. Sherman and Sable Mining is a solid evidence which prosecution can rely on.
State prosecutor Jerry D. K. Garlawolu further added that the evidence before the court can be determined whether or not a crime was committed.
Cllr. Garlawolu therefore requested the court to take into consideration its legal citations as contained in prosecution’s legal memorandum and have the defendants convicted for the crimes of bribery, economic sabotage, criminal conspiracy, criminal solicitation and criminal facilitation.