Monrovia – The Inspector General of Police, Col. Gregory Coleman says so far, the police has not found any evidence of anyone attempting to assassinate the standard bearer of the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), Senator George Weah, as alleged by three men who claimed they were hired to facilitate the process.
Report by Bettie K. Johnson Mbayo, [email protected]
The men claimed they were hired by businessman George Kailondo who was acting in concert with Defense Minister Brownie Samukai and Vice President Joseph Boakai to create commotion during the CDC political rally that took place on August 19, which would have led to the taking down of Weah by hired Russian assassins.
Mr. Kailondo is the UP’s Montserrado County Campaign Chairman while Minister Samukai is a staunch supporter of Vice President Boakai’s bid for the presidency.
Kailondo termed the allegation as rubbish that does not deserve to be dignified.
The men, Moustapha, Long John and ‘Ivorian’ were turned over to the Liberia National Police and the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) to aid with investigation into the allegation.
But according to the Inspector General of Police, the statements given by the accusers do not corroborate which makes it difficult for the police to find any link between the accusers and the alleged plot.
Col. Coleman: Their statements are not corroborating; we’re still trying to get to the bottom of it, but for now, we can safely say that we’ve been able to establish absolutely nothing directly linking the accused.”
Col. Coleman said all the accused were invited for questioning but there has been no concrete evidence to press charges on any of them.
He added that though investigation was still ongoing, if the police could not establish a link, the case would be thrown out, adding that the state got involved because of the security implications the allegation had.
He further stated that the Police has not received any complaint from the CDC that indicates the security of their standard bearer is in jeopardy, hence there is no need to provide him additional protection.
“If for any reason any standard bearer or anyone feels insecure they can directly call me and let me know what the issue is with security,” he noted.
Explaining how the incident occurred to reporters at the CDC headquarters, the self-claimed leader of the group, ‘Ivorian’, said he was contacted by Mr. Kailondo who he has known for a very long time.
According to him, when Kailondo called him he also contacted Moustapha and Long John to accompany him to see Kailondo at his residence.
“Kailondo called me because I have been rolling with him for a very long time.”
“He and I have good rapport. Recently, he met me and said ‘my man, I want see you to my house’ and I even left my black Gucci cap at his house in his living room right under the table. I called Mustapha, Long John and he instructed us about the operations,” he revealed.
He explained that they were given T-shirts and promised motorbikes for the mission with the mandate that they were to create a disturbance at the party’s headquarters during which time Weah would have been killed by the hired assassins while delivering his speech at the party’s headquarters.
He said they were promised US$10,000 for the mission but were given LD$2,000 for them to drug themselves ahead of the mission.
‘Ivorian’ further explained while they were with Kailondo, Kailondo received a call after which he came back to them asking – “The papacy say y’all sure y’all can do it?”
This, he said, gave him the hint that the Vice President was involved in the conspiracy.
“I have no cause lying on Kailondo, Joseph Boakai and Brownie Samukai. But these people feel that this country is for them.”
“We don’t want to live that life. Look at my life, I’m supposed to have gone far, but Madam Sirleaf fooled us, we are not here for that life,” he explained.
“I said to myself that is complete foolishness for us to continue killing our brothers and sisters for the country to go back to war.”
“We want to go to the police and Mustapha said no and we came to the CDC’s headquarters to explain the situation to the officials,” he added.
For Mustapha Sesay, he recounted that he was hired in 2014 to cause instability at the PHP between supporters of George Weah and Robert Sirleaf during the special senatorial elections.
“Since 2014, we have been incited and hired to do things that we were not to do.”
“We did those things because of life conditions in our country, but we were not willing to do those things,” he said.
“We were told that George Weah needed to be assassinated because we have done it before and they know we can do it again.”
During the night of the CDC’s launching, we passed at the headquarters, but people identified us because the pickup was not tinted,” he said.
He said following the identification and also because of their lifestyles, they became afraid and decided to take precaution.