Omrie Golley denies Baldeh connection

The former Chairman of the peace Council of the Revolutionary Front has reacted angrily to his name being linked in an Africa Confidential (AC) report published last week to a fugitive Senegalese. In a letter to the AC publisher, copied to Politico, Omrie Golley said that allegations that he had a close affinity to Ibrahim Baldeh who is believed to have trafficked arms into Sierra Leone, had caused him “considerable distress and which contains manifest untruths and fabrications, in my view and others, clearly designed to demean my integrity and character amongst reasonable and right thinking” people. Golley denied that he was an associate of Baldeh’s, adding that much as he knew him “I am not, nor have I ever been an associate of Bah, and I put you to the strictest proof of this assertion of yours.” On the AC publication that he had commercial dealings with Baldeh, the former RUF spokesman said that he had never had “any commercial dealings” with the fugitive, “or with or through any third parties or foreign investors” dealing with him. Golley threatened legal action if he did not feel fairly treated by the Africa Confidential in stating his own side of the story. Quoting the fugitive, the publication had stated that Golley “collaborated with Baldeh to bring in a group of South Korean investors” and that he (Golley) “arranged for officials of the Make Holdings Group [of Baldeh’s] to visit Sierra Leone, Benin, Ghana, Guinea and Togo” but that they later fell out because Golley “was hijacking the investment programme for ‘personal political ambition’”. (C) Politico 19/08/13