The Trial Of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf - Episode VII

The Trial Of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Episode VII

            It’s ten O’clock in the morning and members of the Grand Inquest had just finished their breakfast of Gaingba (a Liberian food made of pounded cassava) and slippery wollof soup. Baccus Matthew did not swallow the GB, rather he sent to the cafeteria for corn bread and coke. However, he could not help but snatch a few snails and a sizeable monkey thigh and ran them down quickly before his corn bread arrived.

            Prosecutor Wreh had headache. He instructed Cllr. Moses Vah to do the presentation. As the two prosecutors, Vah and Broderick arrived at the deliberation room Madam Sirleaf was in an exchange with a bailiff, subordinate court officer, who had thrown words at her.

            “You will get rotten in jail,” the bailiff had said and walked by steadily. But Madam Sirleaf did not let that lying down.

            “I don’t blame some of you. We laid down our life to bring freedom to you and now all you can pay me is cheap talks,” she growled. Her lawyer swiftly intervened and quieted her down.

            The stage was set and the jurors were ready for day three to hear prosecution’s presentation on why they should slam the “Iron Lady” with an indictment.

            Ellen was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a conspicuous camouflage t-shirt. But ironically she did not wear her usual cap; instead she had on head-tie.

            “Honorable citizens,” Cllr. Vah paused. He stared at Ellen, shifted his eyes toward the foreman and exhaled a deep breath. “Today, we will point out here that the defendant has conscientiously drained blood out of the lives of her fellow compatriots,” he asserted.

            Cllr. Broderick signaled to him for a whisper. “Choose your words carefully so as not to build up sentiments in her favor. We will use whatever words we want when we get our indictment,” he urged his colleague.

            Vah nodded and proceeded. “We have come to you to grant us the charge of sedition against the defendant,” he requested. “She has used every trick in the book by words, writing, strategizing, and anything not only to undermine the regimes of Samuel Doe, Charles Taylor and any regime that she disliked,” he added.

            He took few steps toward his seat and grabbed the portrait of Samuel Doe. “You see in my hand is the picture of a Master Sergeant, Samuel Doe. He was Head of State and became elected president,” Vah said.

            As he was speaking Ellen’s face turns stern. She looked away and took a deep breath. Cllr. Simpson asked if she was fine, and she said, “I guess…”

            “Whether Doe won the elections fairly or not is another argument, but honorable citizens, this woman called a sitting president a “fool”, not once but twice,” Vah told the jurors. “I also call your attention to her interview with the Voice of America when she said, “Taylor is not foolish enough to arrest me…she insults sitting presidents at will thereby corrupting the minds of the citizens and inciting them to disrespect, revolt and possibly overthrow the government.”

            Vah’s presentation seemed to have struck former police director Joe Tate, who nodded three times. “He swiftly scrabbled some notes in the notebook on his laps. “As a former police director that I know is a probably cause for sedition,” he whispered in the ears of former deputy Public Works Minister for Technical Affairs Arthur Vaye. Vaye acted like he was not listening to Joe Tate.

            Sedition is a first degree felony that carries at most five years in prison with hard labor. According to the 1LCLR and the Penal Code of Liberia, a person is guilty of sedition if he/she incites, by word of mouth, hearsay, by writing, and any action that has the potential to break down law and order, thereby engendering imminent dethroning of the government. Treason, sedition, murder, and aiding and abetting to overthrow a constituted authority are not bailable under the Liberian jurisprudence.

            Cllr. Vah’s presentation had defense lawyer Joseph Findley hanging his chain in his palm. Even when a juror offered him a bottle of water he did not notice. “Cllr. Findley,” the juror yelled, “water sir!” Findley jerked and grabbed the bottle of water, took and gulp and belched.

            Broderick took the floor to sum up that with the sedition come Criminal Malevolence. According to him Madam Sirleaf words are so powerful that her followers obeyed them. He said she used her influence to incite the poor people against their government.

            “The defendant makes statements that incited our gullible population to commit crime against the state. She is an evil genius! That’s Criminal Malevolence, honorable jurors,” Broderick said knocking the back of the right hand on his folder. “If the law cannot hold this woman for knowingly, maliciously, wantonly, and purposefully making our people to commit crimes at multiple times, who then will the laws of this land hold responsible for crimes,” Broderick asked and rested his presentation.

            Abe Tolbert, one of jurors, raised his finger to ask a question and Baccus Matthew allowed. “Counselor, please educate me if you will, how are treason, sedition and criminal malevolence different?”

            Just before Broderick could respond, Wreh entered. “Counsel, let me come in,” he said. “If I heard your question well, you want us to distinguish treason, sedition and criminal malevolence.”

            “Yes, Counselor, I am confused right now,” Abe Tolbert said.

            “It is the act and the penalty that distinguish charges. For instance, treason is a first degree or capital offense that carries life imprisonment or death by hanging,” Wreh explained. For treason to lie there must be actual attempt to over throw the government like the defendant and her cohorts did by raising money, commanding forces to overthrow the Doe regime,” he added. “If someone tells an armed group ‘level the Executive Mansion…,’ she is commanding that armed group,” Wreh added.

            As for sedition, Wreh explained it is an action by a person by word of mouth, hearsay, writings, and acts that are geared toward dethroning a government by inciting or revolting.  “Criminal Malevolence is creativity that is done for an evil purpose, being creative to commit crimes against the state, etc.”

            With the response from Cllr. Wreh, Matthew dismissed the session to resume within the next 24 hours. “All parties being, and there being no need to issue citation, hearing is recessed to resume within the next 24 hours at the same time and place, and it is hereby so ordered…”

THE TRIAL CONTINUES.