By Mabinty Kamara
Police at Kissy Barracks, eastern Freetown, are under pressure from community people to explain how come they were unable to prevent a 35-year-old man Mohamed Sesay from committing an apparent suicide after he had previously attempted to do so.
According to Zainab Sesay, wife of the deceased, "It is only about a month ago that my husband started behaving abnormally...but he was already being treated". She said that "on the 16th of May, my husband decided to kill himself in the early hours by climbing to the roof of a tall building but was rescued by some youths".
Eyewitness accounts say that the father of two (eight and three year-olds) later climbed a mango tree in an area called Jalloh Terrace threatening to throw himself down on the rocks below and that every time a rescue attempt was made, he climbed higher.
The accounts further state that police were called in at about 5:00pm but that they left after 10 minutes when they failed to persuade Mohamed to climb down. One eyewitness says Mohamed told the police that he would only climb down if they left the scene.
The wife of the deceased said that "we all thought the police were going back to prepare themselves for the rescue but they failed to turn up until they were called up again on the following morning to remove Mohamed's corpse after it was found dangling from the tree". He apparently hanged himself with his own clothes.
The police Local Unit Commander, Alie Koroma rejected the accusations saying they were only called to the scene on Saturday to bring the corpse down from the tree. He blamed the community people for "neglecting" their duty to have reported the man's movements to the police so that "we would have acted on time".
(C) Politico 20/05/14
