Monrovia – Child rights advocate Abraham Keita charged with criminal coercion charge became a free man Thursday after the Monrovia City Court at the Temple of Justice dismisses the charge filed against him.
Report by Kennedy L. Yangian [email protected]
This is the second time for the Monrovia City Court to drop charges against Keita, the first time was Tuesday, May 30, 2017 when the court moved to drop a contempt charge against him.
The court has decided to hold Keita in contempt after it was alleged that he has refused to honor its invitation to appear for a conference after a writ of criminal coercion was filed against him.
Magistrate Kennedy reversed his earlier decision and pause the contempt charge against Keita after his lawyer, Cllr. Tiawan Gongloe has appealed to the court to pardon his client because he has acted due to his lack of knowledge of the law.
Thursday, June 8, 2017, decision of the court was made after the prosecution lawyers say that due to insufficient evidence they cannot afford to proceed with the case against Keita.
“This is to certify that a careful perusal of the court’s file records in the above case criminal coercion reveals that the said case was nolle prosequoi (drop) by the prosecution and dismissed by the court in favor of the defendant for insufficiency of evidence discharging him from future answering to the charge herein without day and date” reads the clerk certificate from the Monrovia City Court signed by Francis Weah.
Child rights advocate Keita was sued and charged by the Monrovia City Court on May 23, 2017, with criminal coercion following a formal complaint filed against him by Grand Gedeh lawmaker Morias Waylee .
Lawmaker Waylee’s complain to the court on May 23, 2017 has come about after Keita has staged a protest at the Capitol Building asking Waylee’s colleagues to have him investigated on allegation that he had raped and impregnated a 13-yr old girl, the claim Waylee has denied and challenged his accusers to prove their allegation against him.
The court had dropped the charge against Keita on Thursday morning an hour to the start of the case against him which was scheduled by the court at 9:00 am on Thursday, June 8.
A minute after the charge was dropped Keita told Frontpageafrica that he knew that the charge against him was going to be dropped because there was no basis for the lawmaker to sue.
He stated though, the charge levied against him brought his character into public disrepute because a lot of people confronted him on the matter but has no intention to sue the lawmaker so that people should not have the belief that this rape case is centered around him.
“For, me I don’t see the dropping of the charge as a surprise because I acted in the confine of the law as the out-come of the case is a defeat for the lawmaker because there was no need for him to come to court,” said Keita.
On the issue of pronouncement by the Gender Ministry and that of the Liberia National Police that no complaint has come forward with a compliant to them to set the basis for investigation, Keita said the idea was wrong and the heads of these two institutions need to be taken out for their utterances wondering whether anyone ever came to them to investigate the case of the late Angel Togba.
Cllr. Jonathan Massaquoi the lead lawyer for Keita also in an interview with his paper indicated that there was no need for the court to proceed with the case because there was no sufficient evidence and the wrong charge was levied by the compliant.
“There was no evidence for the prosecution to proceed with the case and when this happened the defendants carry the day and this is what happened in this case” said Cllr. Massaquoi who also claimed that the lawmaker levied the wrong charge instead of pressing for damage he pressed for criminal coercion.
However, efforts to get lawmaker Waylee to comment on the case proved futile as he could be found anywhere around the court but a source closed to the court stated that the lawmaker met the prosecutors earlier in the morning and reached the decision and went away.