By Aminata Phidelia Allie
Prosecution in the ongoing mutiny trial has opened its case and informed the Court Martial at Cockeril in Freetown that they plan to bring at least three witnesses on the next adjourned date - Wednesday23, April.
14 soldiers of the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces are being prosecuted for an alleged mutiny that to have taken place at Teko Barracks, the northern garrison in Makeni in August of last year.
According to the prosecution led by Gerald Soyei, the 14 men, on diverse dates between August 6 and 10 last year, at Teko Barracks in Makeni committed mutiny. About four of them were not before the court as no charges were proffered against them. It is however not known whether they are still in prison or have been released.
Making his opening speech yesterday before Judge Advocate Otto During, the lead prosecution counsel implored the panel to confine themselves to evidence arising in court to reach their conclusion “dispassionately”. He reminded them of their duty to the public to acquit or return a verdict of “not guilty” should evidence deduced from the case prove the accused persons were innocent.
On counts 1 to 6 where all the 14 were jointly charged with mutiny, the prosecutor said the doctrine of “joint enterprise or a common plan” could be applied. He said the joint enterprise was “the agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime with a common plan which is later executed. In the present case the plan being to commit a mutiny and it is proved that the act was indeed executed, the action of one person is the action of all the others”.
He went on: “They all do not have to actually do the action. But as long as they all planned it, they are all guilty of the offence. Even if they were all not present at the scene. The act of one is considered the act of all”, Soyei explained.
He alleged that the mutiny was committed on August 10, when the soldiers, aware that a mutiny was being planned, failed to report to the authorities in contravention of the Armed Forces Act.
Soyei noted that the hallmark of the common enterprise was that all the accused persons “agreed that President Ernest Bai Koroma will no longer rule and work for Sierra Leone”. This, he said, was the soldiers’ common plan, evident in documents he said they would tender in court.
He claimed the accused hoped to carry out their plans by means of “methodical planning, tactical recognisance, converting Sierra Leone into a hot spot, preventing evacuation of helpless citizens, dividing and disintegrating Sierra Leone, anarchy within the government, they will not be open to negotiations, incarceration of the president and compelling the president to eat his waste and drink his urine before execution, execution of executives and cabinet ministers, not to accept cease fire , unlawful, ambitious and continuous siege, indoctrinating the nation with anarchy” and other dangerous means “with catastrophic consequences to advance to establish crude political change”.
(C) Politico 17/04/14
