The much acclaimed alleged rape case during the fracas at the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) headquarters has been found to be unsustainable in law.
This was disclosed yesterday when President Ernest Koroma presented in full the report of the Bankole-Thompson Commission to leaders of the main political parties at State House.
The findings further stated that “The logical corollary of such a finding is that the Commission perceives of no legal basis for recommending any prosecutorial course of action against the named or identified suspects herein. We also conclude that the said victims were each subjected to physical mistreatment amounting to outrages upon their personal dignity or other inhumane conduct in violation of their human rights protection.”
Among its recommendations the commission stated that “based on the evidence presented before the Commission that the performance of the Police during the period of the political violence fell far short of expectation, a fact admitted by some of the Police witnesses, the Commission recommends that in future Government takes appropriate steps to ensure that Police deployment during such volatile situations are adequate and effective.”
It also noted that “based on the evidence before the commission of a strong perception on the part of victim/witnesses that the Police were in collusion with the alleged perpetrators in victimizing them, we recommend that Government considers the advisability and expediency of investigating allegations of this nature reflecting adversely on Police neutrality, impartiality and professionalism.”
Based on the evidence presented to the Commission to the effect that sexual violence was meted out to the alleged victims as a political tool, a strong and legitimate perception held by advocates of the elimination of gender-based discrimination especially against women, the Commission recommended that “Government considers the advisability and expediency of addressing this problem as a matter of utmost priority, from the perspective of social justice”.
Speaking at the ceremony at State House, President Koroma after giving a background of why and how the Commission was formed said, among other things, “We have a responsibility to develop the democratic process of this country…”
The President further affirmed that “at the end of it all, it is for us to create an atmosphere of friendliness, an atmosphere of commitment towards building the democratic process in this country for us to know that we have no other country to develop but Sierra Leone. We may have different agendas of development but the ultimate is for us to develop this country. Given the democratic process, we should ensure that we introduce orderliness in the behaviour of everybody within the political process; then Sierra Leone will be restored to the place it rightfully belongs in the international community…”
By Samuel John
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