The Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone (HRCSL) has secured the release of Ibrahim Koroma from the Kabala Correctional Center sentenced for a crime he did not commit.
Ibrahim is a disc jockey that was hired by a man to play for him at a function in Kabala town. He said he slept off by 5am after a whole night play and the lap top he was using to play music was stolen. He reported to the man that hired him whom he referred to as his boss but he did not believe him. Rather he was taken to the Police Station and charged to court where he was eventually sentenced to two years imprisonment.
Ibrahim had spent one year, eight days when the actual culprits, (three of them) were arrested with the lap top and sentenced. One was granted bail by the Magistrate court. The two were all in the same prison with Ibrahim. “My boss just went and took his lap top and forgot about me in the prison. There was nobody to fight for me and nobody spoke about my issue” Ibrahim spoke to HRCSL monitoring team.
Ibrahim was discovered by the HRCSL team during a two day macro monitoring of the Correctional facility, Police cells, chiefdom lock up and the health facilities on Tuesday 7 to Wednesday 8 June in Kabala.
The aim of the monitoring visits was to assess the Human Rights situations in Kabala and the administration of justice, and to assess how much progress has been made in the implementation of the Correctional Services Act 2014 as well as to engage heads of institutions in the administration of justice generally and also to introduce the Mandela Rules and Luanda Guidelines.
The monitoring exercises provided HRCSL with first-hand information on the Human Rights situation in Kabala as well as the opportunity to share and discuss contents of the Mandela Rules and Luanda Guidelines with heads of the various detention facilities in the district and to assess how much progress has been made in the implementation of this new Act. It was there that the issue of Ibrahim Koroma was highlighted to the various authorities where frantic efforts were made for his release.
Tuesday July 19, 2016
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