The Monrovia City Court has for the third time granted state prosecutors’ request to postpone the ongoing trial amidst objections by defense lawyers.
The defense believes that the State demand to retrieve the original framework document of the Collaborating Political Parties (CPP) before its witnesses can testify is calculated ploy to willfully delay the trial and defeat justice.
Lawyers representing the Alternative National Congress (ANC) contended that five months into the trial their clients, Cummings and others have been standing for misdemeanor, a case which has persistently been baffled by state prosecutors.
State prosecutors on Monday, May 2, again requested the court to subpoena the Chairperson, of the National Elections Commission (NEC) Davidetta Browne Lansanah to appear, testify and produce the CPP original framework document, after its Political Officer, Ignatius Wesseh testified and produced the same CPP framework document April 27, 2022.
State prosecutors contends that unless the so-called CPP original framework document is retrieved from the NEC, its 34 subpoenaed witnesses, including Unity Party’s Political leader, Joseph Boakai and Secretary General, Mohammed Ali will not testify.
Defense lawyers described the request as persistently unmerited for the postponement of the trial and sensed an indication of the state ill-prepareness and lacked of evidence to prosecute.
Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and former Justice Minister, Cllr. Gloria Musu Scott who was subpoenaed as state witness and later dropped has now been listed as one of the State lawyers along with four others formerly of the Sherman and Sherman Law Firm.
The court said it granted the state request to resume the trial on Wednesday, May 4, to ensure what it termed as “substantial justice and fair play.”
ANC’s Cummings, Vice National Chairperson Daniel Naatehn and Secretary General Cllr. Aloysius Toe are accused of allegedly altering the CPP framework document but the three ANC officials have vehemently rejected the charges and termed it as bogus and politically motivated as part of conspiracies between the All Liberian Party of Benoni Urey and the ruling CDC to thwart Mr. Cummings Presidential bid in 2023.
