Dr. Sylvia Blyden was charged to court for allegedly defaming President Bio. However, she was later granted bail after police witnesses testified against her in court. Blyden was again arraigned before Magistrate Hannah Bonnie on Friday 14th August 2020 at Magistrate Court No. 1, with the absence of state counsel forcing Magistrate Hannah Bonnie to adjourn the matter to 24th August 2020. Blyden was arraigned before Magistrate Hannah Bonnie on ten count charges while third year engineering student Hussein Mukson Sesay faced one count.
Police alleged that on 23rd April 2020 in Freetown, Blyden acted with seditious intention, to wit, the publication via Facebook that Palo Conteh was in a cell where he had to urinate and defecate in a bucket, and without fresh air. Police further alleged that she published a false statement that’s likely to injure the government’s reputation.
They also alleged that she uttered seditious words on a Facebook social media platform, maliciously published a defamatory comment against President Bio via Facebook. Police furthered that on 24th March 2020, Blyden also posted on her Facebook page: “I need not trust our president penchant exhibited collectively in the 90s under the NPRC military junta to abuse political authority when the Constitution was at bay.”
Moreover, the police alleged that she published a defamatory libel against President Bio via her Facebook page in which she ridiculed him and his tribesmen. It was also alleged that on 4th May 2020, Hussein Mukson Sesay acted to pervert the course of public justice when he published a photograph being used for investigation on a WhatsApp social media group.
Additionally, they alleged the duo conspired with persons unknown to pervert the course of public justice when she sent messages to her various WhatsApp groups to have her number and some other sensitive information deleted to prevent police accessing them. She was charged with seditious libel contrary to Section 33 1a of the Public Order Act No.46 of 1965, publication of false news contrary to Section 32(3) of the Public Order Act No. 46 of 1965, defamatory libel contrary to Section 27 of the Public Order Act No. 46 of 1965, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, and doing an act tended and intended to pervert the course of justice contrary to law.
By Sulaiman Karim Sesay