9 on remand for human trafficking

 By Saio Marrah

 Justice Adrian Fisher has remanded nine accused persons – seven men and two women, one of them pregnant over accusations of human trafficking and migrant smuggling.

 The third prosecution witness Adikalie Kamara testified before Justice Adrian Fisher at Court No.1 in Freetown on Monday 16^th October 2023 that between 1^st and 30^th September 2022, he was in Kamaranka Village, Kambia District when his father, also called Adikalie Kamara, informed him that he (the father) had discovered for an opportunity to travel to Qatar for work.

 The witness narrated how his father gave him the contact number of the seventh accused, Abubakarr Benjamin Kamara, who introduced himself over the phone as an agent to organize the trip to Qatar. He said when he asked the seventh accused about the type of jobs available in Qatar, the accused responded by saying his brother had a hotel in Qatar where they would work and stay.

 The witness said the seventh accused also told him that the cost for the journey to Qatar was 15 million old Leones.  He said he then asked his father to sell their family land, sheep, and goats to raise the said money which they delivered at the agency’s office at Fanna junction, Deep Eye Water along the Freetown - Waterloo Highway.

 The court heard that after his father’s confirmation that the seventh accused was the actual person, the witness handed over the money to him, and the accused then told  Zainab Sheriff and Aminata Sesay the fifth and sixth accused respectively to count the money and that they confirmed that the money was complete.  “When my father asked for the receipt, he [seventh accused] said he would give it to us after the completion of the traveling programme,” he said.

 The witness said when he enquired about the crowd in the house the seventh accused told him he would travel along with the other people and then asked him to undergo a training exercise that Ibrahim Shaw, the third accused in the criminal trial would conduct.

 The witness also told the court that the first accused, Sammy Christian Taylor, requested his cell phone saying the seventh accused wanted to use it to create a bank account for him (the witness).

 He said he gave one thousand New Leones to Mohamed Bah, the fourth accused, who told him that he would convert their local currency monies into US Dollars as they prepared to travel while he handed over his birth certificate and COVID-19 vaccine card to the ninth accused, Abdulai Mohamed Turay, who said he wanted to use it process the passport.

 The witness also noted that the following morning, the seventh accused took a snapshot of him, after which he brought him a piece of paper to sign, but that he was not allowed to read the content because the accused pretended to be in a hurry.

 He said he became frustrated with the whole situation with the accused persons still holding on to his phone so he used someone’s phone to inform his father about the trip to Qatar that had failed to materialize. He said the police were called to the office where arrests were made.

During cross-examination by Lawyer Musa Pius Sesay, the witness admitted that he was given a document to sign, but he was not allowed to read it and rejected the suggestion he was given an online business saying he only paid money to travel to Qatar. The witness also denied that he signed a business deal with Qnet.

 The fourth prosecution witness, Mariatu Musa Bangura also from Kamaranka Village in Kambia District, also informed the court that between the 1^st and 30^th  of September 2022, his uncle brought five of them to the same travelling agent to facilitate their travel to Qatar. She also narrated how their uncle paid 15 thousand New Leones for each of them.

 The witness said their phones were taken from them on the pretext that an account was being opened for her as they prepared to travel to Qatar.

 Another prosecution witness Kadiatu Hawa Bangura, from the same village in Kambia District told the same story.

 Justice Fisher refused to grant the accused bail because the state prosecutor, Aruna Jalloh informed the court that most of the accused were also indicted with similar offences in other matters. He said granting them bail would risk more people being duped.