By Saio Marrah
Paul Daniel Koroma, a pastor, and Abubakarr Gbla have both been set free of sexual penetration charges in two separate cases at High No.6 in Freetown.
Before reading the verdict related to Koroma on the 8th of September 2023, Justice Cosmotina Jarret told the court that there were inconsistencies among prosecution witnesses one, two, three, and four, whilst also pointing out that the witnesses were all unavailable.
Thus, she said, “I have doubts as a judge as to whether the accused did the act.”
According to her, she can only prove the accused guilty when the prosecution has proven their evidence beyond all reasonable doubt. She noted that there were several inconsistencies between the prosecution witnesses and relatives of the victims.
The presiding judge pointed out that the prosecution had failed to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt.
She also considered the fact that three years passed before the said sexual offence was reported.
The judge also noted in her judgment that evidence indicated that the dwelling house of the accused was a small apartment with a room and parlour. She noted that it is rare for the accused to have raped the seven-year-old child without the wife hearing the sound of screaming.
Moreso, in 2016, the time of the alleged crime, there was a boy in the same house, who always slept in the parlour where the alleged rape was said to have happened.
It is understood that the victim was the niece of the accused’s wife, as the complainant.
One of the defence lawyers, Sahr Furman Fomba, informed Politico that the wife and the victim had already left the house of the accused in 2017, but that they backdated the crime to have happened in 2016.
The wife of the accused, who had no child with him, had quarreled with him before she left the house, and afterwards brought the allegation against him, it was stated.
The lead Defence Lawyer, Abraham Kargbo from Legal Aid, described the judgment to Politico as an uplift for the legal system, which he said has been long criticised.
Thus, he noted that the accused would go home a happy man, and “for myself, I am happier. It’s more like a confirmation that the judicial system is very much operating and persons can come to court and trust the process and trust whatever that would come out of it.”
He also expressed their intention of instituting civil action against the complainant, because the allegation almost disintegrated the pastor’s church membership.
The freedman informed Politico that it has taken almost five years since the allegation was levied against him and that as a pastor, he and his church members have been praying over it.
He expressed his gratitude to God for favouring him, noting that there are others that have been sentenced for a crime that they did not commit.
According to him, the alleged victim is a niece to his wife, who he regarded as his own child, and he had wanted to adopt her as their child, but the wife objected.
“I was paying her school fees and saw her as my own biological daughter,” he noted.
The other accused, Gbla, was also discharged and acquitted on three counts of sexual penetration on the same day.
Justice Jarret told the court that the acts committed against the three victims, who are children, were so gruesome, but that she had doubt as to whether the accused did it and that the law says where there is doubt, a judge should return no guilty verdict.
According to her, the prosecution needed to prove their case beyond all reasonable doubt. “As far as evidence shows the three victims’ statements were not corroborated, " she pointed out.
Justice Jarret pointed out that while some of them were saying the alleged sexual penetration happened at an Ataya Base, others were saying it happened at the home of the victim. At some point, she said they even contradicted their statements. “There were so many discrepancies,” she noted
The alleged victims were living in the same compound as the accused who denied having ever brought the victims to his house.
According to Justice Jarret, DW4, owner of the Ataya base, testified that the accused stopped going to the Ataya base in 2017, contrary to the allegations that he raped the victims at the said Ataya Base on diverse dates in 2018.
Copyright © 2023 Politico (13/09/23)
