Thursday, April 24, 2014

Defense boycott in Sierra Leone court-martial

Proceedings appear to have ground to a halt in the Sierra Leone mutiny court-martial as defense counsel for all but one of the 14 accuseds have boycotted the trial. Read all about it in this report from Awoko. Judge Advocate Otto M. During has refused the lead prosecutor's application to take evidence anyway.
Defence counsel Robert B. Kowa representing the 14th accused S.L 1087 Captain Prince Sesay disclosed to Awoko that they were informed that the lawyers representing the 1st to 13th accused persons will not attend since they have unresolved issues with the Ministry of Defence.
Obviously[,] he said[,] "that will stultify the proceedings simply on the facts that if evidence is led by prosecution I will be constrained to cross examine, and this will be unfair to the other accused persons since their lawyers are absent."

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments are subject to moderation and must be submitted under your real name. Anonymous comments will not be posted (even though the form seems to permit them).