13 Grand Gedeans Sentence For Life

The three year-old mercenary trial involving 13 defendants, most of whom are from the Southeastern County of Grand Gedeh ended Tuesday with the 13 defendants earlier found guilty of mercenary by the jurors, now sentenced to life in imprisonment by the presiding judge.

Following the arguments, pros and cons by both the prosecution and defense, Presiding Judge of the Criminal Court “D” at the Temple of Justice Emery Paye announced the sentence when he denied the motion for new trial filed on behalf of the 13 defendants by defense lawyers.

“In the mind of this court, the jurors’ verdict is not contrary to the evidence, therefore the guilty verdict is hereby confirmed and affirmed and that the defendants are sentenced to life imprisonment to be served in a common jail at the Monrovia Central Prison,” said Judge Paye. He said based on the facts in the case, the jurors’ verdict was never contrary to the evidence to warrant a new trial in the case.

Judge Paye furthered that it is the prosecution witnesses who fought along with some of the defendants, that could have linked them in their testimonies to the court and the jury during the course of the trial.

But the defense objected and announced an appeal to the Supreme Court. Outside of the court, Defense lead lawyer Cllr. Tiawon Gongloe told FrontPageAfrica that a ruling of this kind, which had security undertone, is not new in Liberia. He said in such cases it is very difficult for Judges to overturn a verdict.

Cllr. Gongloe said that Liberians should not be surprised to see the ruling overturned at the Supreme Court because such a ruling had been overturned by the Supreme Court to include the Joe Band Joe case verdict as an example.

Isaac Kai a University of Liberia student who hails from Grand Gedeh who monitored the case from start to finish said that he was downhearted over what he called a misplaced verdict. “What happened is just the replica of the old order, but this is not a strange thing under this regime when it comes to issues concerning Grand Gedeans” said Kai.

The defendants have gone on trial after the state indicted them in September 2012 for the act of mercenarism following the post election violence in the Ivory Coast in 2010 that left several persons killed, including seven United Nations Peace Keepers from Niger, but the accused denied the charges against them.

Following the end of the trial last week, jurors who returned from an hour long room of deliberation declared them guilty on the basis that the evidence produced by the state were enough to convict the 13 defendants.

Defense lawyers representing the defendants rejected the verdict also on grounds that state witnesses produced in the trial testimonies that were all hearsay stating that the jurors’ verdict was contrary to the evidence and called on the court to set aside the verdict and grant onto the defendants a new trial. State lawyers resisted the motion by calling on the court to deny the motion because its 11 witnesses testimonies corroborated and had no variance as claimed by the defense team headed by human rights lawyer Cllr. Gongloe.

Arguing the motion before the final ruling on Tuesday, one of the counsels for the defendants Cllr. Dempster Brown opened the argument by quoting part of the Bible which states that do not deny the poor justice, neither put the innocent man to death.

“Let me tell you that the jurors’ verdict was based on lies and that each of the jurors was offered US$500 by the state as a bribe for the guilty verdict and that a court officer named Kpehe was used to strike the deal someone close to the jurors’ told me “ said Brown.

Cllr. Brown told the court that the state lawyers never proved any case against the defendants as has been widely speculated. Cllr. Brown said to prove that, the state’s own witnesses came out to tell the court that the police charge sheet which, jurors claimed to have linked the defendants to the crimes, were never written by them, rather by the police themselves.

Cllr. Gongloe another defense lawyer told the court that the jurors had rendered a guilty verdict because they were afraid of the statement made by the prosecution lawyer Theophilus Gould that Ivory Coast would declare war on Liberia if the defendants were set free.

“Your honor the threat of war scare the jurors to rendered guilty verdict against the defendants because the state had no case to prove, therefore, set this verdict aside and grant the defendants new trial with new jurors,” said Cllr. Gongloe.

State lawyer Daku Mulbah who first took the stand differed with the two lawyers that the state did not prove its case against the defendants. He called on the court to specifically look at the testimonies of witness Blayee Gaye, who testified and told the court that the defendants operated bases in Grand Gedeh and controlled areas in the Ivory Coast.

“Your honor do not rule this case to new trial because the defense counsel failed to represent the defendants and only encourage them to deny the charges without any justifications,” said Cllr. Mulbah.

Another prosecution lawyer Cllr. Theophilus Gould asked the court to deny the motion because throughout the trial no defense lawyer complained of juror tempering and the one of the requirement for new trial is when a Judge misdirect the juror, which did not happen in the case.