FOUR DAYS AFTER the bodies of Albert Peters and his workmate, Mrs. Gifty Asmah Lama, were discovered dead in vehicle on Broad Street near the Sacred Heart Cathedral, details of how or why the pair were brutally murdered remain a scanty.
THE MOST DEFINITE statement on the matter has come from President George Manneh Weah, who while addressing congregants at his Forky Kloh Jlateh Family Fellowship Inc. Church off the Robertsfield Highway Sunday, made specific reference to the discovery of the lifeless bodies of two employees of the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA) last Friday.
SAID THE PRESIDENT: “It is sad to know that our country, a religious country like Liberia you wake up and you see they killed people in car. What is that? We need to stop. No matter what happened, we cannot take a life. The greatest thing is life and the only one who supposed to take that is God. You know how I felt to wake up in the morning after my birthday and two people in the car to Cathedral Church died? Why-we don’t know; if that was a boyfriend or girlfriend issue, that doesn’t allow you to kill somebody because you don’t know where you will end up”.
EVEN PRESIDENT WEAH is unsure whether the issue is related to an alleged affair between the pair, that so far appears to have been dismissed by the family and those who knew the deceased pair.
THE MYSTERY SURROUNDING THE DEATHS is being compounded by several missing pieces yet to be put together.
KEY AMONG THEM is the revelation from Mr. Peter’s wife, Beatrice Andrews Peters that her husband had been home from Sunday to Wednesday, and only left home after receiving a phone call that “Their money was ready”, before leaving home.
SPEAKING WITH Facebook Live Prophetkey Show Sunday, Mrs. Peters said her husband decided to go to central Monrovia to the International Bank (IB) on Thursday morning, taking with him his two laptops which, she found unusual. “Why carry the two laptops,” she asked her husband who, in response, told her: “Maybe they will tell me to do some work,” she told the show’s host.
IN THE WAKE of the deaths of Gifty and Albert, staffers at the Revenue Accounts and Reconciliation departments at the LRA appear to be afraid of their lives, fearful that like Innis, and now Gifty and Albert, their lives too, may be in danger.
ACCORDING TO MADAM Peters, who works as a branch manager of the Liberia Bank for Development and Investment (LBDI) at Freeport, she and her husband left home together on Thursday morning. However, she said she did not see or hear from her husband again.
SAID THE WIDOW: “His phone is most of the time on silent, but when I called, he could not answer. Someone would ‘OK’ the phone but would not answer.”
MADAM PETERS SAYS she and a man named Augustine Chenoweth spoke and Augustine told her that LRA’s employees were at the town hall where the President’s birthday was celebrated. ”He(Augustine) told me that we should pray,” Madam Peters told Prophetkey.
MADAM PETERS HOWEVER NOTED that her husband was not the party type. “My husband cannot be there because he does not stay out late. My husband never slept out one day for the time we have been together for 25 years.”
WHAT IS ALSO UNCLEAR, according to Madam Peters is an argument her husband had with his boss over the phone regarding an unfinished report.
AFTER NOT SEEING HER husband the entire night, Madam Peters explained that she decided to go looking for him – and proceeded to pass through Snapper Hill, Broad Street to reach the International Bank (IB), where her husband had earlier said he was going for his money.
IT WAS WHILE on the lookout Madam Peters revealed that she saw her husband’s car. She said her daughter, screamed: ‘Mama, that’s daddy’s car,’ prompting her to proceed to the parked car.
UPON OPENING THE DOOR, she said, the driver saw Gifty (Victoria) well-dressed and lying with her neck believed to be broken while her husband was in a boxer with his arm broken and laid behind him,” she recounted. She also said her husband’s ear was cut, and he was skinned.
SAID MADAM PETERS: “The driver shouted; and I ran to the car, and that’s how we started raising an alarm. People around there told us that the car was brought early Friday morning by a huge man with a cap on his head and he parked it (car) there, but we do not know him and did not know what was on the car.”
BOTH MR. PETERS and Madam Lama were highly regarded for their principles and ethics – and did not engage in taking bribes.
THE ISSUE OF AN AFFAIR HAS ALSO BEEN RULED out from both families.
ACCORDING TO MADAM PETERS, “Gifty was considered our daughter as she has been so used to my husband, and I cannot tell when I suspected her and my husband in sexual relationship.”
THE DEATHS have also been compounded by reports of injuries to both of the deceased.
ON MONDAY, THE POLICE appear to have very little to say about how Gifty and Albert were killed. Addressing the mystery for the first time Monday, Col. Patrick Sudue, Inspector General of the Liberia National Police(LNP) said: “At present, the Montserrado County Coroner is conducting an inquest in the presence of both families of the deceased after which the report would be forwarded to the Justice Ministry requesting an autopsy if the need for such is established.”
COL. SUDUE has put out an SOS call to the general public for help. “Whosoever that has any useful information should furnish the police with same to further enhance the investigation. We also want to assure the informants or persons who will give such information to the Liberia National Police would be fully protected and the information given to the Liberia National Police would be treated strictly confidential.”
AMID ALL THE CHATTERS that the pair were in the middle of an important audit at the LRA, the authority has not said a word. Multiple attempts by FPA to get some kind of clarity have come up short with the authority declining to respond.
ALL THIS AS FrontPageAfrica has learned that Mrs. Lama had reportedly, recently been transferred as Manager for Taxpayer Services, the section responsible for the supervision of all incoming government money while Albert was auditing that account.
ACCORDING TO SOURCES, the Central Bank which is responsible to transfer to the GoL account, have not been doing that. In recent weeks, revenue account and reconciliation have been spending long hours at CBL to reconcile and they cannot trace the taxpayers’ payments to the consolidated fund.
SADLY, ONE LRA insider appeared baffled Monday that both the Supervisor of the Taxpayers Section and Mr. Peter’ immediate boss have not revealed what assignment Albert was working on and why Gifty had been transferred.
ONE SOURCE told FPA MONDAY, that Mr. Peters may have needed Gifty’s help in guarding the collection from the LRA tax system, due to her expertise in the area.
FOR NOW, many are unsure whether the same circumstances that led to the death of Matthew Innis is not in play here.
INNIS WAS the deputy director for Microfinance at the CBL. Innis’s death came on heels of the saga involving the missing LD16 billion.
IN THE WAKE of the deaths of Gifty and Albert, staffers at the Revenue Accounts and Reconciliation departments at the LRA appear to be afraid of their lives, fearful that like Innis, and now Gifty and Albert, their lives too, may be in danger.