By Grace Q. Bryant
The ongoing US$100 million cocaine smuggling case took a dramatic turned when the defense first witness implicated the government of inserting a controversial photo of the containers said to have contained the drugs shipped from Brazil in his phone.
In his testimony, at Criminal Court ‘C’, on Thursday, Malam Conte said, his phone was seized by officers of the Liberia National Police (LNP) and the Liberia Drugs Enforcement Agency (LDEA) so they are the ones who allegedly inserted the photo of a pig feet container in his phone.
“The images and videos that were presented by the government when they testified, that they were in my phone are false. I never knew anything about the images and videos found in my phones. They were placed there by the government,'” Conte reiterated.
According to Conte, the government after seizing his phone also erased the content that was in the Portuguese language and changes it to the English language.
“When they took my telephone it had a password, but how did they enter my telephone? I don’t know because these telephones had passwords. And since that day, October 1, 2022, I never saw these phones until here in court,” Witness Conte claimed
Earlier, in his testimony, prosecution first witness, Samuel Nimely said, when defendant Conte went for the container, at his THR office, he used the phone, and displayed the parking order of the container of pig feet shipped from Brazil, as well as the description of the boxes.
Nimely further claimed that there was lots of containers in their warehouse, but it was the phone Conte used to identify the particular container of pig feet, where the cocaine was discovered.
But according to Conte, seizing his phone was a violation of his right to privacy noting, “Because my phone had passwords were not in English. I do not speak English and now they are in English, but I can’t enter to see what is inside it.”
Also in his testimony, witness Conte said that the statement for the LDEA and LNP was never to his knowledge and that he was forced to sign it.
“I am from a country where the official language is Portuguese but this instrument that is here today, never before was read by me and translated before my lawyer. What they did was that I was forced to sign a paper that had contents that I did not know and never wrote such , so I was obligated to sign and it was never translated,” witness Conte revealed.
According to him, the police in spokesperson, Carter rejected his statement from the LDEA office and requested an official translator so that he could have a legal consultation with his lawyer.
