By Saio Marrah
A 58-year-old man pleaded guilty to murdering his younger sister, Isha Saidu Hughes at the high court judge in Freetown presided over by Justice Monfred Sesay on Wednesday 1st November 2023.
The judge dismissed Sulaiman Conteh’s plea saying that the law does not permit him to end the trial that way so the court should proceed with the case. A 12-person jury was then empaneled.
The Lead State Prosecutor Aruna Jalloh while addressing the jury said the deceased was a staff of the Sierra Leone Correctional Service before her death while the accused resided in Conakry, the Republic of Guinea until the death of their father when he returned to Freetown.
Lawyer Jalloh said the deceased invited her brother, the accused, to come over to their father’s house where she was residing, and when the accused came and ordered the deceased to hand over the house documents to him so he could take control of the property and start collecting the house rent.
The prosecutor said when the deceased refused to hand the document over; the accused attacked and killed her on the night of the 14th of July this year.
A witness then told the court that during the night of the incident, she was sleeping in the same house as the deceased and the accused and that while they were still in the living room the accused knocked on the door of the deceased’s room. The witness said as soon as the deceased came out of her room the accused started hitting her head with a hammer.
According to the child witness, aged seven, the deceased ran to the bathroom and the accused chased her there and slashed her with a cutlass.
The court also learned from the pupil who is in class three that the accused then laid the deceased in the bathroom and cut off her tongue and hand with a knife.
She said in the morning family members asked about the deceased and accused and then found out about what happened the night before.
The witness said the accused refused to open the main door of the house to the police who had to call a carpenter to break the door, but that before police could enter the house the accused had already stabbed himself in the kitchen.
The court also heard that the police found the deceased’s body in the bathroom, removed it, and arrested the accused. A brother of the first prosecution witness, also a child, testified along similar lines.
During cross-examination by Legal Aid Lawyer, Randy Salieu Bangura, the child witnesses told the court that both the accused and deceased were fighting, but that the deceased had no weapon.
The prosecution alleges that on the 14th of July this year, Sulaiman Conteh murdered the deceased at their family house, 6A Savage Street in Wellington, Eastern Freetown.
The case resumes on Wednesday 8th November this year.
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