Monrovia – Senator H. Varney G. Sherman – the man accused of disbursing bribes in the Sable Mining bribery saga unearthed by Global Witness – has told the Court in the ongoing trial that return checks from the International Bank Liberia Limited. to Sherman & Sherman Law Firm in 2010 have been either shredded or burned.
Report by Lennart Dodoo – [email protected]
The return checks were part of documents subpoenaed by the court from the bank as per the request of State Prosecutors to form part of evidence to prove the allegation of bribery.
The bank upon its failure to furnish the court with all the documents requested informed the court that some of the banks statements and scanned checks requested may have been on CD Rom probably damaged from which data could not be retrieved.
However, the bank noted in a communication addressed to the court last week that the documents were also contained in statements submitted to Co-Defendant Varney Sherman already.
Sherman’s expeditor, Joseph Bayougar, admitted to the court he did receive the package from the bank in May 2010 for onward submission to his bosses (Cllr. Varney Sherman/Sherman & Sherman Law Firm).
In his own testimony last Friday, Cllr. Sherman said while it is true that the bank submitted statements and return checks in May for April 2010, such were only needed by the Sherman & Sherman Law Firm for the reconciliation of its accounts to ensure that there were no discrepancies in its debit entries.
Sherman told the court while on the witness stand: “No. I did not bring any checks with me and I couldn’t have brought to this court checks alleged to have been issued by us in 2010.
The purpose of sending us the statement f accounts and return checks each month was to reconcile our account; that is, to compare the return checks with the debit entries on our statement.
If satisfied, the return checks have no ore utility to us, because it is also required that within 20 days, I believe, we should inform the bank of any discrepancy between the return checks and our statements.
More to that, you are asking me about checks and statements which were sent to us nearly seven years ago, we do not keep those records for any reason for that length of time having being satisfied that there were no discrepancy between the return checks and our statements.”
The seasoned lawyer who is now in the defendant’s dock was quizzed by Prosecutors whether he did issue check# 001743 in 2010 in the amount of US$50,000 (which was reported paid) to Richard Tolbert, a Co-Defendant in the trial.
Sherman in his response told the court that that he doesn’t recall his firm ever issuing to Co-Defendant Tolbert any check for any purpose. “I can also confirm that we do not have return checks or statements for any month or period in 2010, they all been disposed of long ago,” he said.
“Return checks of April 2010 were either shredded or burned, when we had no need for them after verifications were made,” he added.
Also taking the witness stand in last Friday’s hearing was Cllr. Boakai P. Harris, the in house lawyer for International Bank Liberia Limited.
He was quizzed by Prosecutors that since the could not provide scanned checks of April 2010, why he couldn’t also submit that of June 25, 2010 to August 31, 2010 which Cllr. Sherman did not sign for their originals.
He answered by asking the court for more time to enable the bank to diligently search all its branches, record section to see whether those checks can be found. He requested up to Tuesday this week.
But the Prosecution sees the action and request of the bank as “ premeditated, well calculated, well-intentioned malicious, purposeful, willful and grossly meant to bring this honorable court to disrepute.”
The prosecutors prayed the court to take actions to send out signals to other courts who may find themselves in similar situations.
“The prosecution is constrained to pray as arm of this court to flex the muscle of justice of the courts of Liberia by ordering your honor having found them in contempt of this honorable court by virtue their act, that this court take the most appropriate drastic and stringent measure to commensurate with the willful acct of International Bank of Liberia Limited as to every force there is and ought to be opposite equal and surpassed reaction.”
Meanwhile, while acknowledging that the action of the bank to continuously dodge the requests from the court as contemptuous, it considered that the transactions took place more than six years ago and for that reason pardoned the bank’s failure to produce the documents last Friday.
The judge, however, strongly warned that failure on the part of the bank to produce documents or establish their whereabouts during the next hearing, the authority of the bank will be severely punished by fine and imprisonment simultaneously until they comply with the order of the court.
The trial continues on Wednesday, March 29, 2017 at Criminal Court “C”, Temple of Justice in Monrovia.