MONROVIA – The Monrovia City Court at the Temple of Justice Monday, March 4, sent to jail at least three of the five arrested so far by the Liberia National Police ((LNP) in the ongoing investigation into alleged missing billions at the Central Bank of Liberia (CBL).
Bettie Johnson Mbayo, [email protected]
Messrs. Dorbor Hagba (1st from left), Milton Weeks (middle) and Charles Sirleaf (last), were sent to the Monrovia Central Prison at South Beach on Center Street after their legal team failed to secure a bond of L$5.29 billion.
According to the police charge sheet, the five men, including Richard H. Walker, I, and Joseph G. Dennis, who police said are on the run, were charged with Criminal Conspiracy, Economic Sabotage, Misuse of Public Money, Property or Records and Illegal Disbursement and Expenditure of Public Money. The FrontPageAfrica had seen a the charged sheet long before the accused were dragged to court this morning.
In the Writ of Arrest for the five defendants, it is stated, “That during the period January, AD. 2016 up to and including February, A. D. 2018 in the City of Monrovia, Montserrado County, Republic of Liberia, Co-defendant, Charles E. Sirleaf while serving as Acting Central Bank Governor, purposely with the wicked criminal intend, connived and conspired with other officials of the Central Bank of Liberia and the aforesaid co-defendants all of whom un-authorizingly and intentionally printed and caused the printing of excess Liberian Dollars banknotes (L$146,250,000.00) for which the amount of US$401,469.58 was paid to Crane Currency by the Central Bank of Liberia (CBL) on the 5 billion Liberian Dollars Banknotes printing and US$433,898.14 for the excess Liberian Dollars printed (L$359,750,000.00) on the 10 billion transactions, and additionally failing to account for L$2,645,000.00, which the said defendants out of deception criminally converted to their personal use and benefit with the intent to deprive the government and its citizens thereof. The actions on the part of the defendants have the propensity to cause serious economic instability, undermine the government and caused its citizen to rise up against it.”
The Writ further stated that the alleged act of the defendants “being unlawful, wicked, illegal, criminal and intentional is in violation of the statute laws of the Republic of Liberia to include sections 15.80, 15.81 and 10.4 of the Reversed Penal Law of Liberia there and then crimes herein the defendants did do and commit.”
Also, the police charged sheet concluded that Defendant Charles E. Sirleaf and his accomplices (Milton A. Weeks and Dorbor M. Hagba) including defendants Richard H. Walker and Joseph F. Dennis, who are at-large, are criminally liable for L$2,645,000,000 brought into the country which cannot be accounted for by them (defendants.)
Alaskai Moore Johnson contributed to this article