By Politico Investigation Unit
Ruling party Member of Parliament for Constituency 61 in Lower Yoni in the Tonkolili District, has accused the police of murder, rape, looting and an attempt to cover up their own brutality against innocent civilians they should protect. The police Criminal Investigations Department have flatly denied the allegations.
Llyod Hallowell, MP, told Politico that a group of police officers, allegedly led by Superintendent of Police Max Kanu on Tuesday 8 May raided Mafantha in Yoni Chiefdom, in his constituency, and opened fire indiscriminately killing one person (Alpha Sesay), wounding at least one other (Dauda Fullah), and causing hundreds of the inhabitants to flee the town “with twenty still unaccounted for”.
The issue was over a disputed piece of land to which both Mafantha and neighbouring Royanna lay claims. Max Kanu hails from Royanna hence the allegation that it was premeditated. Several telephone calls put through to Mr Kanu throughout yesterday yielded no dividend. However, Samuel Kargbo, Detective Superintendent of Police and Operations Officer attached to the CID denied that Max Kanu led a team of police officers to Mafantha.
Speaking to Politico he said their investigations revealed that Mr. Kanu dispatched a team of 10 police officers including personnel from CID and the Operations Support Division (OSD) led by the Crime Officer and OSD Commander in Mile 91 upon receiving information on 7 May that there were violent clashes at Makaima and its environs.
Kargbo said that upon arrival, police found one Pa Brima, a resident of Royanna, being held hostage and apparently tortured and chained to a tree. He said an attempt to rescue the man proved futile as residents in the village attacked the police, wounding one of them with a machete. He said police called for reinforcement from Magburaka who were also attacked with shotguns, machetes and sticks, which he said compelled the police to use force to put the situation under control and to rescue the man held hostage.
According to Hallowell, the police also looted the grain store in Mafantha containing dozens of bags of rice, bulgur wheat and corrugated iron zincs that had been donated to the town as relief items following a recent inferno that left dozens of houses gutted. They also allegedly carted away cattle belonging to the people.
He said the police chased the residents into Sosowui and Kpetema in neighbouring Moyamba district where they allegedly raped a woman (name withheld) who, he said, is currently staying with relatives at Mile 91 in fear for her life.
Medical sources at the Moyamba Government Hospital, corroborated by the Officer in Charge of Crime at the Moyamba Police Station, OC Lahai confirmed to Politico that one Alhassan Kanu was also taken in with gunshot wounds. He has since been transferred to the Italian-run Emergency Surgical Hospital at Goderich outside Freetown. Moyamba police records show that Alhassan alleges that five people were shot dead by police during the shooting in Mafantha but this cannot be independently verified.
MP Hallowell said that following his intervention the police were asked to bring the body of the slain Alpha for an autopsy, which was still lying in the open days after he had been killed. He said the police instead went and exhumed the body of someone else who had died of natural causes so as to cover up the gunshot wounds that had allegedly caused Alpha’s death.
“They brought the fake corpse without family members being allowed to either verify it or witness the postmortem” Hallowell alleges, adding that the police took back the corpse and reburied it in Mile 91, away from the actual place, so as to avoid eyewitnesses and family members from detecting that they had brought the wrong corpse to Freetown for autopsy.
The MP told Politico that he would rather the matter was investigated by an independent panel because “the police are bent on covering up the matter”. He showed Politico a document said to have been obtained from the police in Freetown, listing 27 items his constituents had obtained from the area after the police had left. They include live and spent bullets and empty tear gas canisters.
The melee and alleged police orgy started after a court order had instructed that use of a disputed piece of land be shelved by either of the two communities until the matter had been decided. Superintendent Max Kanu, according to MP Hallowell, then instructed one of the disputing parties to farm on the land. Once the other community members challenged the order, the police allegedly raided the place.
Detective Superintendent Samuel Kargbo also denied this version of events saying that three police officers sustained injuries and one of their vehicles burnt by residents of Mafantha.
Asked whether police killed one civilian called Alpha Sesay and wounded at least another who is currently held at the CID, Kargbo answered in the negative. He said police discovered the corpse of a man under a burnt corrugated sheet in Mafantha identified as Alpha Sesay whose body was brought to Freetown for postmortem. He said the autopsy revealed that the man had died of gunshot wounds to his leg and hernia, adding that the body was hurriedly taken to Mile 91 and handed over to the Regent Chief for burial as it was decomposing. He said they also learnt that a man sustained injury and was hospitalised in Moyamba, but added that upon their visit to the hospital, they were told the man had been taken to the Emergency Hospital at Goderich. He said that when they eventually visited the Emergency hospital, they couldn’t locate the man.
Kargbo also dismissed allegations that police raped a woman, looted zincs, bags of rice and cattle. He said he saw no sign of looting when he visited the scene days after the incident, except that the village was completely deserted.
He pointed out that the communities of Mafantha and Royanna also known as Pathbana had no common boundary, but that both were laying claims to a piece of land located close to Royanna. He said 11 suspects were helping the CID with investigations.
Director of Crime Management, Chief Superintendent of Police, Karrow Kamara told Politico that Mile 91 and its environs are crime-prone communities. He said that in 2008, when he was the Local Unit Commander in Mile 91, a similar incident took place between two sections in the town during which four people died – two from each of the sections.
