Report by Alline Dunbar, [email protected]
Monrovia: Members of the Liberian National Student Union of Liberia(LINSU) along with the family of the late Odell Sherman are protesting and blocking the main streets in front of the Liberia National Police(LNP) demanding justice for the young high school graduate who was found dead in the home of Reverend Emmanuel Giddings, the night after she took her 12th grade National Exams.
They are demanding that the government bring in an independent Pathologist to carry on the autopsy on the deceased and call records from Odell phone be available.
Protesters are charging that the government of Liberia through the Liberia National Police is proceeding wrongly with the case by dragging its feet on the process.
All efforts Made by the LNP to mitigate or calm the protesters to leave the main streets have so far failed.
The protest comes as the family of the deceased Sherman have threatened to protest against the conduct of an autopsy on the corpse of the 21-year-old, who died at the ELWA Hospital after she reportedly found unconscious at the home of Rev. Giddings in Duazhon, Margibi County.
The body of the deceased is currently at the St. Moses Funeral Parlor along the Somalia Drive, Gardnersville Township.
The autopsy is expected to establish the cause of death as the current death certificate produced by the hospital is sparking “confusion,” the police said in early June.
Assistant Justice Minister for Litigation Wesseh A. Wesseh told FrontPageAfrica on Tuesday that the family has brought into the country a “medical consultant who is not a pathologist” but they have insisted that he conducts the autopsy.
“We told them that he can come and monitor the autopsy so as to make it more transparent, but the family insists that they don’t trust the process and want the consultant to do the autopsy,” says Assistant Minister Wesseh.
“We have said no; that their consultant cannot carry out the process because doing that will dilute the whole process. He doesn’t have a license so how can he do an autopsy?”
LINSU and the family of the deceased are expressing distrust of the justice system, and banding together by blocking the flow of traffic plying the Capitol By-Pass easily in hopes that the powers that be will heard their concerns.