By Grace Q. Bryant
Today Thursday, May 18, the empanelled jury the court will be adjudging the US$ 100M cocaine case which resulted from the TRH Trading shipment of some huge quantity of the harmful drugs from Brazil into the country.
The jury for the past three months has been listening to testimonies from a total of seven general witnesses and five defense subpoena witnesses, from which they will bring down their decision after following the closing arguments by both the defense lawyers and the prosecution.
Four persons were indicted by the government in connection with the shipment of the cocaine and they have been tried on multiple charges ranging from criminal conspiracy, money laundering, unlicensed possession of controlled drugs to unlicensed importation of controlled drugs.
During the trial, prosecution paraded six general witnesses and three rebuttal witnesses, as well as, CCTV footage (videos) and one of the defendants’ cell phone believed to have contained photos of the containers carrying the stockpile of cocaine and a physical testing of the drug in open court to prove its existence that indeed that was the cocaine allegedly seized from the THR premises on the Somalia drive.
While the defense produced one general witness who testified on behalf of the remaining three defendants and six subpoena witnesses.
The prosecution argument was based specifically from the testimonies of Samuel Nimely, the General Manager of THR who appeared as a whistleblower in the case.
According to Samuel Nimely’s testimony which could be the focus point of the prosecution’s side of the trial, he claimed that the defendants offered to give US$200, 000 for the container of pig feet where the cocaine was allegedly discovered adding that normally is costs US$21, 000.
The prosecution displayed the mobile phone images of a parked container believed to have been shipped from Brazil to Liberia allegedly by the defendants, therefore the phone was said to have been seized from the defendants prior to their arrest.
“We were able to identify the narcotics as being grade ‘A’ as the cocaine was also chemically tested. The cocaine was stocked in boxes labeled silver whiskey, the container having been identified and the suspects were arrested,’’ Nimely’s testimony.
While, the defense team’s closing arguments definitely focused on two of the State’s rebuttal testimonies.
In laying out their arguments, the defense looked at the testimonies of two of its subpoena witnesses, James Hinneh, president of the Custom Broker Association of Liberia and Othello Gablah, publisher of the New Dawn Newspaper.
Witness Hinneh accused the National Port Authority (NPA) of not issuing TRH Trading any import permit declaration to clear the cocaine container from the Free Port of Monrovia, surprisingly the container left the port without being searched.
Moreover, the defense’s fifth rebuttal witness told the court and jury that BAVIC did not also give permission to TRH to clear the container pointing out, “The cocaine container didn’t follow the BAVIC regulations because it did not attach its permit prior to the clearing of the container by TRH.”
According to Hinneh, the report was to confirm that the container is free of dangerous substances; He also testified that TRH trading also violate the custom regulation by shipping the US$100million cocaine container in the country.
When Othello Garblah testified, he held TRH trading responsible for the shipment of the cocaine container in the country with the assistance of the government.
Garblah, , the publisher of the New Dawn Newspaper said “basically, in any giving situation criminals will exploit any weak system and in this case, Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA) has admitted that TRH had been given certain privileges allowing them to clear their goods/ consignment of containers under such arrangement which is using mere invoices or bill landing.”
He testified that, “Therefore, any criminal knowing such system could exploit same.”
According to Gablah, prior to the arrival of the container, the Global Maritime Tracking Solution that tracks shipment across the world mandated that the container with the US$100million cocaine be subjected to physical inspection but it was ignored.
Meanwhile, the sequestrated jurors have retired into their room of deliberation to return to court today with a verdict on the facts either in favor or against the defendants after which the court will render its legal decision.
