Sierra Leone: Lawyer Melron Nicol-Wilson has on Monday 7th June 2021, called on the Appeal Court Judges to quash the adverse findings and recommendations made against the former Minister of Health and Sanitation, Madam Miatta Kargbo.
Representing the Former Minister at the Court of Appeals, Mr Wilson said the Sole Commissioner misconstrued the evidence in relation to his client.
During his oral submission, before Justice Momoh Jah Stevens, Justice Adrian Fisher and Justice Ivan Sesay who is the Presiding Judge, Lawyer Nicol-Wilson said the Sole Commissioner Justice Biobele Georgewill only took consideration of the sixteen ambulances that were air freighted into the country during the Ebola epidemic instead of the twenty.
He disclosed to the Court that twenty ambulances in total came into the country, to help fight the Ebola epidemic instead of the sixteen the Commissioner took into cognisance of. The Appellant Counsel said sixteen of the ambulances were first air freighted into the country while the remaining four later came through by sea.
He further argued that she was being tagged with a joint criminal enterprise, which was never the case. The learned lawyer said his client had left office, since 2014, but was being mentioned by the Commissioner over and again. He said the findings must be erroneous, as it wasn’t supported by evidence.
The Former Minister of Health Miatta Kargbo is one of the former government officials that was indicted by the 2018 Commission of Inquiry recommendations and findings, alleging to have misappropriated billions of Leones, but she is now in court challenging those findings and recommendations. Counsel for the state has now the responsibility to respond to such an argument, before the Judges will come out with their findings.
MJB/09/06/2021
By mohamedj.bah@awokonewspaper.sl