The former Civil Defence Force (CDF) war director, Moinina Fofana was on Monday released from custody at the Residual Special Court subject to the modified conditions on allegation of violating his conditional early release from the Residual Special Court.
In October last year, the former war director and warlord was alleged to have attended the All People’s Congress (APC) party Youth League in Makeni on 23rd October 2015, a breach of one of the conditions stipulated in his early release.
After an intensive preliminary investigations at the Fast Track Commercial Court at Government Wharf, the presiding Judge, Vivian Solomon, in her ruling said, “according to the court’s findings, Monina Fofanah attending the APC Youth League had no meaningful impact or posed any threat in the present political climate in Sierra Leone,” stating that the prosecution failed to provide evidence to substantiate or ascertain their allegation of Mr. Fofana’s declaring for a political party or remonstrating against another party.
In her ruling, Justice Vivian Solomon mentioned that having viewed the evidence before her, the Special Court convict has not violated any of the stated conditions prior to these allegations, therefore she averred that his detention will be deterrent  to the intention of the Special Court on his early release to help reintegrate him into society.
She noted that the argument by the defence of Mr. Fofana’s misunderstanding of his conditions was due to his lack of formal education which, according to the judge, is not excuse because the convict was trained in Rwanda and also acknowledged that he understood the conditions sets for his early release. On that note, Justice Solomon found the accused wanting of intentionally deceiving his monitoring authorities to attend the conference and for providing the court with contradicting theories.
Monina Fofana’s released was subject to the revoked conditions which state that Moinina Fofana and any other authority should not directly or indirectly intimidates or interfere with any of the witness, victims or family members and should conduct himself honourably and peacefully in the community.
Monina should not engage in secret meetings intended arrange civil unrest or join local politics which will include any form participation and also he should not leave Bo city for the next 6 months, stating that following to the expiration of the 6 months he should be permitted to leave Bo town subject to approval.
The court blamed the Monitoring authority for the violation of the conditions, emphasizing that they were complacence in delivering their job.
Tuesday April 26, 2016