The jails and prisons in Sierra Leone are filled with people who fail to pay their debts, including lactating mothers with their babies. Yet, there is a segment of the population that commits violent crimes and never gets arrested. This segment of the population is the semi-literate youth who are recruited as thugs for the incumbent political party; they are protected from criminal prosecutions, which has led to increased lawlessness among them, including criminally harming other citizens.
A case in point
In March 2022, two young men in their early 30s ganged up on their older cousin, a man in his mid-60s with a disabled arm. The attack took place in Tuba Village, Sembehun 17 in Bo District. The two attackers are Kansu Mansaray, whose Facebook moniker is “Tuba Pikin” and Dauda Mansaray, (a.k.a. Alhaji) with the moniker “Daudil Mansaray.”
Neither of the two criminally dangerous brothers lives in the village but showed up for another cousin’s funeral to seize the opportunity to execute their planned attack on their victim.
Kansu and Alhaji Mansaray caught their victim unaware, held and restrained him by his one “good” arm, then proceeded to beat him mercilessly; they stripped his pants off him in the presence of several villagers, including children and women. By God’s Grace and the help of an onlooker who intervened just when the two brothers were about to throw their victim over a banister onto a concrete ground where he would have sustained an even more severe bodily injury or even death.
Kansu and Dauda Mansaray
The victim then traveled to Bo, as crime victims from villages must do, to report the matter to the Family Support Unit of the Police (Bo Eastern). The police referred the victim to the Bo government hospital for a medical examination. Unfortunately, there was no doctor available to examine him until a few days later, as there are no resident doctors at the government hospital in Bo. But the victim sought medical treatment for his injuries at a private clinic and has since been receiving treatment for the injuries he sustained in that vicious attack.
The attack took place in the presence of several people in the village. The attackers and their siblings have also sent audio messages confirming the attack, so there is abundant evidence that the two vicious brothers did attack, beat and strip their victim naked.
It is terrible enough that two able bodied young men in their 30s would gang up on a man in his 60s with one functioning arm, but the worse part of it all is how the case is being handled in the Magistrate Court. With all the mounting evidence in this case, the two criminal brothers have never been detained by the police, and they continue to be threats not only to the victim but to the community.
They Wear the “BADGE”
Any sensible person may ask ‘why?’ But another cousin to the two criminal elements explained it best when she advise that the family not waste money or time trying to pursue the case in court against the the two criminal brothers. She said, “those two boys wear the badge” and it gives them free rides with the police and the courts.
Of course, having the delusional belief that Sierra Leone is a country of law and order, the family dismissed the cousin’s advice. But one of the two criminal brothers sent an audio message to a key witness in the village that got the victim’s family thinking otherwise.
The video below contains part of Dauda Mansary’s long messages to a key witness, which is mostly in the Mende language, some of which are transcribed in the image of the video.
The cousin’s advice and this criminal attacker’s rants would have still been dismissed if not for the manner in which the case has been treated in the Magistrate court in Bo.
Indeed the cousin was right, these criminal elements, wear the Bo Goverment Secondary School for Boys (Bo School) “badge,” the same “badge” that the incumbent president of Sierra Leone wears, the same “badge” that most heads of law enforcement and the judiciary wear.
Even though these criminal young men dropped out of Bo School, by virtue of stepping foot in that school even for one day, they become “badge” wearers. In recent times, we have seen that Bo School has become a recruiting ground for incumbent politicians to enlist semi-literate youth into their hired thug squads for their political rallies and more. Such recruits are empowered and emboldened by the protection they get from top politicians who influence law enforcement and the judiciary.
Of course, the Magistrate, who also wears the “badge” proudly, has made it very clear that he will not prosecute the two criminals. Even though a crime victim should normally depend on the work of prosecutors, the victim’s family was advised to hire a private lawyer because “prosecutors have no voice in magistrate court.” But that too has been futile, because the magistrate in charge of the courtroom, Magistrate Lloyd Jusu, also wears the “badge.”
Magistrate Jusu has gone as far as acting as the criminal boys’ lawyer. In the last hearing, it was not the prosecutor or lawyer who did the cross-examination, it was the Magistrate, and he attempted to shame the victim by asking him embarrassing questions. Magistrate Jusu asked whether the victim had on underwear on the day that the criminal attackers beat and stripped him naked, he also asked the victim questions about his private parts at the time of the attack. Talk about double victimization!
The Magistrate most definitely received that “phone call” to which the criminal attacker referred in his audio. But with such mounting evidence and witness accounts in the case, the Magistrate, wanting to adhere to the demands of the “phone call” has now resorted to the age-old tactic of death by adjournment. This happens in most cases that the court system wants to get rid of without a ruling. The Magistrate has “adjourned” the case several times already, and will keep adjourning the case until the witnesses get tired of traveling from the village to be in court in Bo early in the morning; or until the victim realizes that the case will never go further and stop showing up in court.
MAMA SALONE ~ Lioness of the West Coast 