By Aminata Phidelia Allie
After spending about four months in prison while standing trial for allegedly stealing cables belonging to the National Power Authority (NPA), Mohamed Famajah was yesterday convicted and sentenced to another 12 months in prison.
The convict had been tried on one count of unlawful possession by Magistrate Komba Kamanda of Court No.2 in Freetown.
The particulars of offence were that on Friday 28 September, 2012 Famajah was found at Race Course Road with four rolls of high tension cables which were suspected to have been stolen.
In his judgment the magistrate said that there was no way he could be convinced that the said cables were not stolen because even the convict’s own statement to the police was enough to put him behind bars.
“The evidence is clear that those cables belong to the NPA. After they were identified by NPA, they have been proven to be special cables that only they have the right to possess,” he said. He went on that the convict’s statement was “unreliable and unbelievable”. He ordered that the exhibits be handed over to NPA.
In another matter Magistrate Kamanda remanded one Mathew Jones who was before the court on one count of unlawful carnal knowledge.
According to the particulars of offence, on Tuesday 4 December, 2012 the accused allegedly penetrated a 7-year-old girl at Smart Lane, New England Ville in Freetown.
Second prosecution witness, the victim who cannot be identified, said the accused, whom she identified as her aunt’s boyfriend, invited her into his room and asked her to take off her skirt which she did.
“He then used his hands on me and blood came out which he used an old rag to wipe off,” she testified.
She recalled that the accused gave her Le3, 000 (three thousand Leones) and threatened to kill her if she told anybody about her ordeal. But one of her aunt’s, she said, noticed the blood on her skirt when she reached home and alerted neighbors and her mother to it.
The mother, who identified herself as a businesswoman that sells at Lumley, testified as the third prosecution witness. She told the court that she took her daughter to the New England Ville police station where the girl revealed the identity of the accused. The matter comes up again on Saturday 16February, 2013.
