Top: The Bushrod Island Magisterial Court. The DayLight/Varney Kamara
By Varney Kamara
MONROVIA – Two alleged timber smugglers in Caldwell are spending a fourth night behind bars after a court ordered their arrest following a search and seizure of incriminating evidence at their company’s premises.
On Tuesday, the Bushrod Island Magisterial Court sent suspects Amara Fofana and Suleyman Karabacak of Libfor Forest Corporation to the Monrovia Central Prison for multiple crimes.
“You are hereby commanded to proceed at Libfor Forest Corporation, and Libfor Forestry Inc, operated by Mr. Amara Fofana and Suleyman Karabacak… to find threatening evidence of the illegal processing and trafficking of wood, the operation of an unregistered and illegal sawmill, including wood products and processing machines use to perpetrate the said illegal act,” read the court order.
“You are hereby commanded to arrest the living body of Amara Fofana and Suleyman Karabacak, identified as defendants, before this Bushrod Island Magisterial Court, Montserrado County, to answer the crime smuggling, environmental crime, fraud, and economic sabotage.”
Fofana and Karabacak remain in jail because defense lawyers have failed to file a $100,000 bond, court officials said.
Their arrest and subsequent incarceration came within 48 hours after a DayLight investigation exposed Libfor’s illegal activities between Liberia and Sierra Leone. The publication established that Libfor has never traded through the legal channel for timber trade, known as LiberTrace.
Yet, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry’s records show that Libfor shipped 55,000 cubic meters of sawn timber in a 20-foot container on May 2 last year with a value of US$22,000. The newspaper also published evidence that Libfor has illegally traded timber over 50 times, citing international trade data.
The court has yet to hold a preliminary hearing into the case.
“No lawyer has filed in for preliminary hearing even as we speak,” said Thomas Kun, prosecutor at the Bushrod Island Magisterial Court.” “The essence of this kind of hearing is to afford parties, including the court, the opportunity to listen and know the actual source of the case.”
Whether or not a preliminary hearing is held, the matter will be transferred to a higher court, as the Bushrod Island Magisterial Court does not have jurisdiction over economic sabotage, a state crime.
Kun added Fofana and Karabacak are expected to be prosecuted at the Montserrado Circuit Court during the official commencement of the February term of court.
