By Wilfred Kabs-Kanu, New York, USA. December 7, 2023.

The prosecution in any case of collaboration or being an accomplice to an alleged crime will always face a heavy evidential burden. I am not going to be specific and I am not going to discuss the evidence needed to prove collaboration because some people do not know what they are doing and I do not want to give anybody ideas . I will try to be general.

If Sierra Leone was a country with a judiciary, one would have said that bringing charges to prove that somebody was an accomplice in a crime is a non- starter where there will be failure to satisfy the evidential burden. But we do not have a judiciary . The judges, magistrates and lawyers are all in the pocket of the government and they render judgement to please the government.

An accomplice is a person who KNOWINGLY , VOLUNTARILY or INTENTIONALLY gives assistance to another in the commission of a crime.

The evidential burden to prove that somebody was an accomplice in a crime in which he was not caught on the scene is very high. The threshold to prove that somebody was an accomplice BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT is high. Mind you, the prosecution always has the burden of proof ( not social media extremists with loud voices ) and proof must be demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt.

Mere association with an accused in no way proves there was a collaboration.

This is where I will stop . I just want my readers to know that because I associate with SORIE who went and broke into somebody’s house to commit a crime does not make me a collaborator or accomplice in his crime. Even if Sorie and I had dinner together minutes before he left and I even gave him money and he used my money to procure transportation to the crime cannot sustain a charge of collaborating with a criminal or being an accomplice to his crime.

But I will stop here.

May God bless our nation.