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By Deborah Sorie, Freetown, Sierra Leone. October 7, 2024.
Sento Conteh, a woman who was jailed for indecent exposure during the August 10, 2022, protest in Makeni, has been released.
Conteh served the two-year sentence at the Female Correction Centre.
In September 2022, Magistrate Mark Ngagba of the Pademba Road Court No.1 sentenced Conteh to two years imprisonment after she was found guilty of exposing her body and dancing without clothes during the protest. The accused pleaded guilty to the offense.
State prosecutor Yusif Issac Sesay argued that Conteh’s actions were morally wrong and brought shame to womanhood. He said the accused on the said day of the riot, stripped herself naked in a video that went viral.
He said the video showed her genital and other private parts of the accused and added that the accused didn’t waste the courts time, but asked that the Magistrate should sentence the accused to serve a jail term of two years five months so that it will serve as a warning to others.
Sesay continues that the accused could be a mother, sister, or girlfriend that had brought shame to womanhood as what she did was not only legally wrong but morally wrong also.
Defense counsel G. Conteh pleaded for leniency, citing Conteh’s first-time offense and the circumstances leading to the indecent exposure. He noted that she had lost her husband and child.
Magistrate Ngeba sentenced Conteh to two years imprisonment, considering the maximum fine for such an offense and the severity of the crime.
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