Indict Her or Free Her: Liberia Cannot Keep Jewel in Limbo

Summary: Forty-seven days after her arrest, former Vice President Jewel Howard-Taylor remains under house arrest without a Grand Jury indictment. The government says it has strong evidence, yet the case appears to hinge on one witness, an alleged co-conspirator. It has also ignored a legal path to a special Grand Jury, and Liberia’s wider drug traffic remains unexplained. The state must either present its case or release her from restrictions.

FORTY-SEVEN DAYS AFTER former Vice President Jewel Howard-Taylor was stopped at Roberts International Airport and charged in what the government called one of the biggest narcotics cases in the nation’s history, Liberians are entitled to ask a simple question: where is the case?

THERE IS NO Grand Jury indictment. There is no trial date. What there is, instead, is a former vice president confined to her home under court-ordered restrictions, and a government that told the country it had “overwhelming evidence” but has yet to put that evidence before the body the Constitution says must review it first.

LET US BE clear about what this newspaper is not saying. We are not saying Madam Howard-Taylor is innocent. We are not saying she is guilty. The allegations against her are grave: drug trafficking, money laundering, conspiracy, and payments said to run into hundreds of thousands of dollars from people tied to an international cocaine network. Liberia’s drug crisis is real. Our young people are dying from it. The government has every right, indeed every duty, to pursue anyone it believes is feeding it.

BUT HAVING THE right to prosecute is not the same as having the right to wait indefinitely.

The Constitution is not optional

ARTICLE 21 OF our Constitution says no person shall be held to answer for a capital or infamous crime except on indictment by a Grand Jury. That provision exists for a reason. It is the people’s check on the state, a requirement that ordinary citizens, not just prosecutors, agree there is a case worth answering before a person’s liberty is taken.

THE GOVERNMENT’S EXPLANATION is that the Grand Jury is not sitting. But the Criminal Procedure Law anticipated exactly this situation. Section 15.5 allows a Circuit Court judge, on the prosecution’s application, to summon a special Grand Jury whenever the public interest requires it. If this case, which the government itself has described as a matter of national security, does not meet the public interest test, it is hard to imagine one that would.

SO WHY HASN’T the Ministry of Justice used it?

What is the government waiting for?

CRIMINAL COURT “C” denied Madam Howard-Taylor’s bail on September 24, ruling that the government’s writ alleged conduct continuing into August 2026. The court was careful to say its ruling did not settle the substance of the charges. That is the point. Every ruling so far has been about whether she should be held, not whether the state can prove what it says.

MEANWHILE, THE CASE appears to rest heavily on one man: Sheikh Bashiru Kante, the businessman who allegedly introduced her to the network, allegedly carried money to her foundation, and whose phone allegedly holds the recordings at the center of the prosecution. Kante is himself an alleged co-conspirator. He was arrested in the United States in 2022 on fraud and money laundering charges. And this week, sources close to the defense claimed he is demanding US$500,000, banked abroad, before he takes the stand. The Ministry of Justice has denied offering him money.

WE CANNOT SAY whether that claim is true. But the government’s silence on the larger question is telling. If the state has travel records, financial trails and independent evidence, as it said in August, why does the case appear to stand still whenever the conversation turns to one witness? A prosecution built on the word and phone of an alleged co-conspirator with his own legal history is fragile. The longer the government delays, the more it invites the suspicion that it knows this.

One woman cannot be the whole story

THERE IS ANOTHER question this case forces on us. In the past year, Liberia has seen cocaine seizures worth hundreds of millions of dollars: four tonnes in July alone, and hundreds of kilograms at the airport in June. Drugs on that scale do not move through a country on the influence of one retired politician. They move through ports, airports, customs posts, security checkpoints, warehouses and bank accounts.

WHO SIGNED OFF at the port? Who cleared the cargo? Who looked the other way at the airport? The foreign nationals named in the case have been charged in absentia, beyond the reach of our courts. If Madam Howard-Taylor ends up as the only prominent Liberian ever to face trial for this traffic, Liberians will be right to ask whether this was a war on drugs or a war on one person.

Fairness is not a favor

THE DEFENSE HAS its own questions to answer. It has argued that the 2023 drug law cannot apply to conduct before it was passed, and the court has so far sided with the state on that point. Those are legitimate legal fights, and they belong in a courtroom, not on radio talk shows or in political rallies.

BUT THE BURDEN right now is on the government. It chose to arrest a former vice president at the airport. It chose to announce its evidence to the public. It chose the timeline. It must now live by the rules it is asking the rest of us to respect.

DUE PROCESS IS not a favor granted to the powerful. It is the protection every Liberian relies on, including the market woman, the motorcyclist, and the student who will never have a team of lawyers or a newspaper willing to tell their story. If the state can hold a former vice president for seven weeks without an indictment, it can hold anyone.

THE MINISTRY OF JUSTICE has two honorable options. Convene a special Grand Jury and present its evidence, or admit that the evidence is not yet ready and release her from restrictions while the investigation continues.

WHAT IT CANNOT do is leave her and the nation waiting.