By Fatima Kpaka
Momodu Bah, a sixty-year-old man, is being investigated before Magistrate Sahr Kekura for allegedly breaking into and stealing the sum of NLe152, 400 from a foreign exchange bureau owned by one Rahim Mohamed.
Magistrate Kekura of court No 1. Ross Road admitted the 60-year-old to bail in the sum of NLe 500,000 with two sureties to stand in the accused’s recognizance.
The sureties should reside in Freetown and should also furnish the court with a NASSIT identity card, and the accused’s bail should be approved by the Deputy Master and Registrar.
The accused had been arrested by Detective Police Constable 17845 Koroma M. and had also been arraigned on a charge of Office Breaking and Larceny contrary to law.
In this case the Police Charge Sheet indicates that the accused on Monday 29th May 2023, at K-Step, Calaba Town, in Freetown, broke and entered into Rahim Mohamed’s Foreign Exchange Bureau and stole NLe152, 400.
The second prosecution witness, Mason Amara Musa, testified and identified the complainant as his boss.
He recognized the accused as a security guard working at the foreign exchange bureau owned by the complainant in Freetown.
Musa recalled that on the 29th of May 2023, when he went to enquire from the complainant whether they were working on that day, the complainant’s wife whose name was not mentioned, informed the bureau, their office, had been broken into with items stolen from there.
‘Upon receipt of the information, I immediately left for the scene, upon my arrival, I saw the accused, and when I interrogated him in respect of the incident, he told me that he was asleep by 3:00 a. m.,” he said.
He added that at the crime scene he discovered that the door leading to the said office had been destroyed, and also that the entire office had been ransacked. He added that he had also observed that the television and laptop computers had been carted away.
He said that after a few seconds the complainant arrived at the scene, noting that he and the complainant later left for the police station at Calaba Town where they reported the matter.
According to Musa, the complainant and a team of police officers later visited the crime scene and took photographs while the accused was invited to the station.
Musa informed the court that himself together with some police officers left for the accused’s residence at K- Step.
He added that when they arrived there an old woman informed them that the accused had not been to the said place for the past two years.
He said the accused led them again to another residence at Yams Farm, but the accused’s wife whose name was not disclosed, told them that since they transferred at the said residence, she had not been seeing the accused for the past three months.
The witness in conclusion said he made statement to the police at the Calaba Town Police Station.
Defence lawyer Solomon Maada Gbongboto cross examined the witness on behalf of his client.
The matter has been adjourned to the 3rd of August 2023 for further hearing.