Monrovia – Naomi Bah testifying as the second witness for the prosecution in the ongoing murder trial of Defendant Johnette Pinky Abu has linked her to the death of her boyfriend, Morris Johnson.
Report by Kennedy L. Yangian, [email protected]
Johnson, who was an employee of the National Social Security and Welfare Corporation (NASSCORP), was on June 26 of this year allegedly stabbed to death at Abu’s home in the Samuel Kanyon Doe Community in Paynesville.
State prosecution, in August of this year, indicted Miss Abu for murder after her lawyer Cllr. Arthur Johnson pressed for the state to bring her to court and prove their case, charging that she was innocent.
Cllr. Johnson claimed that it could be a violation of the rights of a Defendant to remain in jail after he or she has been indicted, saying the law requires that an indicted Defendant must be brought to court for trial within the period of two terms of court.
In the instant case, Cllr. Johnson argued that there was no forensic report and there was no autopsy done on the body of the deceased to establish the cause of death.
He added that there is no witness to come out to testify that the Defendant was the one that stabbed the victim.
Cllr. Johnson, who vowed to file a motion to admit his client to bail if she is not try within the statutory period, said “the law provides that when the presumption is not great and the evident is not proven a Defendant in that case can be admitted to bail”.
However, based on Cllr. Johnson’s argument, state lawyers during the November 2018 Term of court arraigned defendant Abu at the Criminal Court “A” where her trial is ongoing.
But the defendant denied the charge and pleaded not guilty, thereby joining issue with the state to prove its case.
During the course of the trial on Tuesday, December 4, 2018 prosecution second witness Naomi Bah took the witness stand and told the court and jury that when the incident occurred she came out of the house and heard the late Johnson yelling and holding his side claiming that Pinky had stabbed him.
But defense lawyer Cllr. Johnson told the court and jury that there was contradiction in the testimony of the prosecution witness, claiming that when witness Bah was invited by the Police she told the police that she saw the Defendant stabbing the deceased while in her testimony before the court she alluded that she saw the victim shouting that Pinky had stabbed him.
However, when questioned which one of her two statements was true, she added that the one she provided to the police was not true that she saw the Defendant stabbing the deceased.
The case was adjourned on order of Judge Roosevelt Willie to commence on Wednesday, December 5, 2018 at the hour of 10:00 am.
Witness Bah was discharged from the stand for the prosecution third witness to take the stand on Wednesday.