Justice Nicolas Browne-Mark last Saturday refused to admit the CD plate that counsel defending the SLPP chairman in constituency 104 Abdul Aziz Carew and Abdul Quee, as exhibit before the court at the ongoing trial for the alleged stabbing of Lansana Fadika during the local council elections that was held past January in Constituency 104, ward 369.
Before the court sitting, crew from the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Cooperation (SLBC) had prepared the platform by placing a projector and a DVD player at the side of the court so that it can be used for viewing the said CD plate that was presented to the court in the previous sitting by Daniel Moseray-Producer of “Wey yus” at SLBC.
Lawyer Eke Halloway told the court that they subpoenaed Ibrahim Conteh who is the free lance journalist who did the recording, adding that he did interview him early in the morning, but they were yet to see him in court for appearance.
Lawyer Gevao stated that he confirmed from Mohamed Sahid Sesay that the letter was delivered to Ibrahim Conteh.
Justice Browne- Mark ordered two policemen to assist Lawyer Gevao to search for the witness Ibrahim Conteh and the court was stood down for thirty minutes.
Led in evidence by Lawyer Eke Halloway, Ibrahim Conteh disclosed that he usually uses his Sunny video camera, and stills camera as tools for discharging his work, adding that he went with them to the Connaught HospitaQl where he did an interview with one Ibrahim and Mr. Fadika and recoded it in his mini disc tape with his Sunny video camera.
After the interview, according to the witness, he called Mr. Daniel Moseray through his mobile phone but was informed that he was not at SLBC at the moment, and then called Lucy-ann Ganda Co-Producer of “wey yus.” He said “I gave the original Mini Disc tape to Lucy-ann Ganda one of the Co Producers of “wey yus.”
In cross examination, the witness admitted that he did the recording alone, adding that he had a brake down during recording as he had to gone out for a while. He added that he submitted the mini disc tape to Lucy-ann Ganda the same day that he did the interview and that the said tape was never returned to him after submission.
Justice Browne-Mark ordered counsel for the defence to submit the names of their two remaining witnesses in the matter and the court was again stood down for some time for the defence to submit the names.
“My lords with respect to what you said, the remaining witnesses for the first accused are Lucy-ann Ganda and Haja Abibatu Carew and Mrs. Marie Alghali.”
Led in evidence by Eke Halloway Lucy-ann Ganda, broadcast journalist at SLBC stated that she knew Ibrahim Conteh since the time her Boss who is Head of Television broadcasted that members of the public who have news items for publication can help SLBC with them.
According to Lucy-ann, she spoke to Ibrahim through mobile phone on Saturday 14th January this year, but said “Ibrahim gave the tape to me on Monday 14th January the same year and the broadcasting was done the very night.”
She disclosed that she gave the tape to Josephus Olu the Digital Editor who was sitting next to Daniel Moseray at SLBC, adding that the editing was done the same day by the editing team before the broadcast. She maintained that during the editing, they used different clips from the scene at Fourah bay on the same incident and blended them together with the clip from Connaught Hospital and presented one clip for the program (wey yus).
The witness stated that she will not be in the position to produce the original tape that Ibrahim gave her as she submitted the tape to the editing team for editing.
Lawyer Halloway pleaded that since the witness had mentioned two names in her testimony including Daniel Moseray who had already testified before the court, he will like the court to allow them to call these people to help the court. On that basis, Justice Browne-Mark asked Lucy-ann Ganda to give Daniel Moseray’s mobile phone numbers which she did in court and Lawyer Gevao called Daniel Moseray with his own Mobile phone inside the court and the court was again stood down for Daniel Moseray’s appearance.
Justice Browne-Mark allowed Lawyer Halloway to lead further examination in chief with Daniel Moseray presenter of “wey yus” who admitted working together with Lucy-ann Ganda and Josephus Olu at SLBC, and admitted receiving the tape from Lucy-ann and tried to transfer and edit the clip for production.
According to Daniel Moseray, Josephus is his senior editor who did the cutting and took what they wanted for their program. He disclosed that after the editing they re-cycled the tape “as we can use a tape for more than ten times as it is very expensive.”
Daniel Moseray maintained that the edited version of the tape in relation to the incident at Connaught Hospital was put on a CD plate which they used for the program and that was what he submitted to the court in the previous sitting.
Lawyer Halloway stated that they will like to see the content in the CD plate as edited before tendering before the court, but Justice Browne-Mark ordered that they should submit the CD plate.
The CD plate was tendered by the defence through the witness to be recorded as exhibit, but Justice Browne-Mark ruled that the CD plate is an un-authenticated version of the original tape, adding that there is no way the court can use the CD plate as it has been edited and it cannot be accepted as exhibit in the trial as what the witness showed the court is different from the original recording “You cannot use an edited version as duplicate,” he said.
ADVERTISEMENT