Monrovia – The five defendants detained for alleged bribery, theft and economic sabotage has been released from prison.
Report by Kennedy L. Yangian, [email protected]
The defendants are officials of the National Housing Authority (NHA). They are Duannah Siryon, Director General; Augustine Weah, Isaac T. Roberts Jr.; Deputy Managing Director for Technical services, Tugbe C. Tugbe Deputy MD for Administration and Patrick H. Deline.
They were incarcerated on the charges of Theft of Property, Economic Sabotage, Bribery, Criminal conspiracy, and criminal facilitation.
The defendants were released following writ of mandamus filed before the Chambers Justice, Sie-A-Nyene Yuoh, Associate Justice.
All five of the defendants have individual lawyers as they jointly requested the chambers justice to issued the writ on Stipendiary Magistrate Kennedy Peabody of the Monrovia Magisterial Court.
Justice Yuoh ordered magistrate Peabody to resume jurisdiction and proceed according to law.
The petition was filed before Justice Yuoh for reportedly failure of magistrate Peabody to accept US$184,000 Insurance bond from Accident Insurance Company (ACICO) that was filed before him to bail the defendants after they were re-arrested on November 28, 2018.
The defendants were re-arrested following Judge Roosevelt Willie of Criminal Court ‘A’ granting a writ of habeas corpus prayed for lawyers representing them.
The writ of arrest says the defendants “connived and conspired” with the intent to extort and solicit money from the company (Gelpaz), receiving the sum of USD$92,000.00 under the pretext that the money was a requirement for doing the business in the country.
According to the writ, after receiving the said amount out of deception, the defendants converted the money into their personal use and benefit.
The writ also details that the alleged act being “unlawful, wicked and criminal” is intended to deprive the country (Liberia) of its revenue and deceive foreign investors wanting to do business in the country.
Gelpaz-Immo is a Burkinabe company, which has come into the country to construct over 5,000 housing units along the Robert International Airport highway.
An investigation conducted by LNP established that on September 16, 2018, approximately 19:00 defendant Siryon, Managing Director of National Housing Authority went to a local hotel in an apparent move to receive money from GELPAZ’s coordinator Emmanuel Tapsoba. Defendant Weah, who purported as ambassador to GELPAZ, accompanied Tapsoba.
The record says during the investigation, defendant Siryon was quizzed whether or not he did receive money from the coordinator of GELPAZ, how much was the amount he received, and for what purpose was the money given?
He (Siryon) denied receiving any money at the local hotel on said date but admitted receiving US$1,000 from defendant Weah at the same hotel prior to the signing of the MOU between GELPAZ Company and NHA.
Defendant Siryon told the investigator that after he received the US$1000, he got down to the hotel lounge had a second thought and went back upstairs where he met and returned the same amount on grounds that it was illegal.
On the audio recording where he is heard admitting in the presence of his two deputies and defendant Weah that he received US$80,000, he (Siryon) but he maintained that he didn’t receive any money.
For Weah, he openly told the investigation in the presence of his lawyer that he was present at the hotel when GELPAZ coordinator Tapsoba gave the amount of US$80,000 to defendant Siryon, an amount he (Siryon) requested to “soften the ground”.
In furtherance of his assertion, NHA boss gave him (Weah) 20,000 to keep and deliver it to NHA boss, which he did the next day in the presence of some NHA staff.
Police later interviewed the president of GELPAZ Mr. Alain Zoughan at another local hotel where he admitted (through his interpreter Dr. Mahamoud Ouadrago) to sending US$92,000 in two fore.
Now that the defendants are out on bail, is not known whether they will return to work or will face extra presidential punitive actions. The Executive mansion is yet to say anything about the positions of the defendants at the NHA.