PHOTO: Alleged torture survivor now sitting blind in front of the Executive Pavilion on Monrovia’s Broad Street
By Garmah Never Lomo, garmahlomo@gmail.com
A man who was allegedly tortured and made to have sex with a corpse at a funeral home in Zwedru, Liberia’s southeastern Grand Gedeh County in February 2018, has since gone blind and surfaced in Monrovia, appealing to the Justice Ministry to purse his case that was taken to court.
The man, identified as Kadafi Barh was allegedly forced to have sex with dead woman and thereafter splashed with some of the chemical used for embalmment, thereby causing him to lose his sight, with his condition gone from bad to worse.
Some personnel of the A.B. Davies Funeral Home in Zwedru were accused of carrying out the act and later charged and sent to court by Police, but prosecution has since frozen.
Mr. Barh was also allegedly mercilessly beaten by workers of the funeral home and later dragged to the premises of their funeral home behind the Martha Tubman Memorial Hospital
The Ministry of Justice, through it County Attorney is said to have played a delay tactics with the case on tribal level, allegedly telling the victim that he wasting his time he will not win the matter.
Mr. Abraham Davis, owner of the funeral home was subsequently charged with aggravated assault, criminal Attempt to commit murder, while few of his co-workers were also charged with criminal conspiracy and criminal facilitation and forwarded to court.
Prior to the matter being sent to Court, Defendant Abraham Davis allegedly made a statement that nothing will come out of what he had done.
The now blind man who was allegedly subjected to the torture, Kadafi Barh has since surfaced in Monrovia and has now joined other virtually impaired citizens to beg for living on one of Monrovia’s busiest street, Broad Street. He was seen with only the slippers on his feet and the clothes on his back on Tuesday, September 7, 2021 when this www.newspublictrust.com Reporter met him. This victim of alleged torture was quick to express how hunger he was.
Cry for Justice
In a chat with Barh, he said the incident with him in 2018, he is yet to get justice and because his condition has gone from bad to worst with no family support, the mean of his survivor is to join in the street to beg.
“I can’t get food to eat daily neither do I have sleeping place,” he explained in tears.
A high school graduate, Barh’s life has now become so miserable as the result of that fateful tragic incident back in February 2018.
But up till now, neither Abraham Davis, owner of the A.B. Davies Funeral Home nor any of his workers are yet to be prosecuted by the Ministry of Justice, since the disturbing act was allegedly meted out against the survivor, well over well over three years after it happened (since February 5 of 2018).
Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations forbids torture and guarantees people’s right to– Freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
“1. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In particular, no one shall be subjected without his or her free consent to medical or scientific experimentation.
- States Parties shall take all effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent persons with disabilities, on an equal basis with others, from being subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
When survivor Barh was allegedly being dragged by workers of the funeral home, he was strangely taken to the room where bodies are been embalmed and forced to have sex with an old dead woman whose body was been preserved. After which, he was given water used to wash the bodies to drink. And finally chemical used to embalm was wasted in his eyes which has caused him completely blind.
The account goes that Barh’s hands were tied and he was taken to the Zwedru City police station in Grand Gedeh County, where the matter was investigated by police authorities,
Defendant Abraham Davis and his co-workers at the funeral home have meanwhile, pleaded not guilty. But they later requested for change of venue of the case to the 9th Judicial Circuit Court in Sanniquellie City in Nimba County, something the court granted.
Since the matter was transferred to Nimba County on change of venue motion, the Ministry of Justice is said to have totally abandoned the case, thereby denying the alleged torture survivor Justice.
Kadafi Barh was accused of stealing steel rod and other materials from the funeral home premises but the he however denied the claim made by the funeral authorities.
Mr. Barh is calling on human rights activist or institutions, Civil society organization to come to his aid that chemical used to embalm dead bodies is slowly killing him day by day.
With this situation many Liberians in and out of the Country believe that the Justice System under the CDC government is not working in the interest of the masses/ordinary people, but rather those connected to the power that be and those within the Ruling Party.
Many watchers of this alleged torture case think that the Ministry of Justice doesn’t exist, because they close eyes on Human rights issues and issues affecting the lives of the wellbeing many Liberians.
The Rule of Law should be hallmark of Democracy but in the case of Kadafi Barh, “the rule of law is in darkness” and only the Ministry of Justice has the light, someone close to this case said.