Cllr. Wilkins Wright Accuses Gov’t Prosecutors Of Not Giving Defendants Their Miranda Right
PHOTO: Some of the suspects on trial
By Garmah Never Lomo, garmahlomo@gmail.com
The legal Counsel representing the defendants in the ongoing US$100 Million cocaine case at the Criminal Court “C” Temple of Justice, Cllr. Wilkins Wright has claimed that the defendants currently standing trial are all victims who were wrongly arrested.
Cllr. Wright, who used to be a member of Liberia’s Supreme Court bench, also claimed that they were set up by the government. The defendants are Malam Conte, Adulai Djibri, Djalo, Makki Admeh Issam and Oliver A. Zayzay were few months ago arrested the Liberia National Police along with the Drugs Enforcement Agency (DEA).
Cllr. Wilkins Wright
They were indicted by the juror for Montserrado on four counts of Money Laundering, Unlicensed Possession of Controlled Drugs, Unlicensed Importation of Controlled Drug and Criminal Conspiracy.
The defense Lawyer informed the jurors that the defendants on trial were indicated on four counts Money laundering, unlicensed possession of controlled drugs and criminal conspiracy.
Cllr. Wright said the prosecution didn’t tell the jurors when they took the witness stand anything about Money laundering and how much money that the defendant took.
According to him, the defense will prove their case to the jurors who are judges of the fact and at the end of the trial the defense will ask the jurors to bring down a not guilty verdict.
He said the defendants “were Indicted for these crimes but the whole process is illegal and the defense are all the victims.
“These are the wrong people that they arrested, these are the small small people that the government set up, they set these young people up and allow other people to escape,” Cllr. Wright said.
He described as illegal objects, those evidence that prosecution products in recent times and said they cannot convict the defendants,
The defense lawyer also said that all the evidence that prosecution brought in court was not given to the defense to review them.
Cllr. Wilkins Wright said that in the ongoing US$100 million cocaine case, the defendants’ Miranda Right was not giving to them.
He also told the jurors that they will prove their case and they will go back to the jurors to bring a not guilty verdict in favor of the defendant.
The jurors were further told that the prosecution also indicted the defendant for unlicensed possession of controlled drug, but they didn’t not arrest Malam Conte with anything on him, and they carry him somewhere else.
Cllr. Wright then asked: “How can they hold Conte for unlicensed possession of controlled drug, when he didn’t have anything in his possession when they arrested him?”
According to him, the defense should have produce its first witness in person of Malam Conte but due to technical problem confronting the team of interpreters so the case was postponed to Thursday April 13,
The prosecution produced eight witnesses and rested their argument on Monday April 10, with both oral and documentary evidence, and the case should have continued yesterday, but based on the technical problem with the interpreters they could not continue.
The defense also gave the theory of the case to the jury and this was also done by the prosecution few weeks before their 1frist witness took the stand.