Monrovia – Johnette Pinky Abu, 26, was arrested and charged with murder by the Liberia National Police (LNP) for allegedly stabbing her boyfriend — Morris Johnson — to death in the Samuel Kanyon Doe Community in Paynesville in June 2018.
Report by Kennedy L. Yangian [email protected]
The incident, according to police claims, occurred during an alleged scuffle she and the deceased had at her home.
Following her arrest by the LNP and subsequent charge, she was forwarded to the Monrovia City Court at the Temple of Justice, for prosecution but was ordered detained at the Monrovia Central Prison by the lower court, pending indictment by state prosecution for murder. It is two months now since the indictment and Defendant Abu is yet to go on trial.
Lawyer representing the detained woman on Monday, November 12, called for her speedy trial in line with the law.
Cllr. Arthur Johnson told reporters after the opening of the November 2018 Term of Court that keeping the defendant in jail without trial after being indicted since the two terms of court was a violation of her rights under the doctrine of due process as enshrined under Article 21 Chapter Three (3) of the 1986 Constitution.
Citing Section 18.2 of the Criminal Procedure Law, a defendant indicted for a criminal offence is to be tried within the period of two terms of court after indictment as is in the case of his client Johnette Pinky Abu.
Cllr. Johnson continued that it is incumbent upon the Ministry of Justice, the prosecution arm of government, to bring his client to court to prove its charge as contained in the indictment. He claimed that his client is innocent and that the police did not perform any forensic that could establish that she committed murder as the police charged sheet states; further adding that the police charge of murder was based on circumstantial evidence.
“In the instant case,” Cllr. Johnson stated, “at no time did she commit murder because the deceased was drunk when he got to her home and that it was the deceased who took the knife in the alleged commission of the crime that he used to cut his client finger off and while he committed the act he ran down the steps and felt over the knife which caused his death but not his client that stabbed him.” He maintained: “There was no evidence to show that she stabbed the deceased.”
“There is no evidence to show that she stabbed the deceased and that the mark that was on the back of the deceased did not indicate stabbing as the Supreme Court’s opinions on cases of such that in order to prove murder there must be a forensic and that of medical report to substantiate the fact,” Cllr. Johnson further added.
The defense lawyer went on to say that what was so shocking about the case that the woman’s two-year child was in the care of the deceased’s family while the defendant is behind bar claiming that it should have been the state prosecution who should be the one to take charge of the child as required by law.
According Cllr. Johnson, he will file a motion to the court required to try the case, to admit his client to bail in line with chapter 13 of the Civil Procedure Law that grants bail to a defendant when the evidence is not proven and presumption is not great.
“The law provides that a defendant can be granted a bail when the evidence is not proven and the presumption is not great be it a non-bailable offence,” Cllr. Johnson stated.