The family of a 32-year-old man who was discovered dead while serving police detention at the Salent Police Station on the Airfield in Monrovia are calling for justice.
It was reported that Prince Wreyou allegedly hung himself during the evening hours of April 12, 2024 while in a withholding cell that hosts over five other inmates, something that has raised concerns among family, friends and sympathizers.
His father blamed his death to some persons (tugs) who allegedly arrested him on request of the Independent National Commission on Human Rights (INCHR) Commissioner Mohammed E. Fahnbulleh, following a shady vehicle repair deal between the two.
Mr. Sammy Wreyou informed this paper that his son was allegedly beaten by over eight persons who were allegedly contracted by Atty Fahnbulleh over the repair of his Ford jeep.
“The man paid some gay men on 18th Street, headed by one Martia, to arrest and beat my son. He gave Prince his car to fix and while Prince was working on the vehicle, he ordered Martia and his boys to arrest and beat him, because, according to him (Fahnbulleh), Prince ran away with his money,”Mr. Wreyou explained.
According to Mr. Wreyou, after arresting and torturing Prince, the group called Fahnbulleh who took him to the police, where he met his untimely demise.
He observed that Prince may have died in prison from injuries he sustained from the torture at the hands of Matria and that the police are covering up for the human rights commissioner on claim that Prince hung himself.
“Why would Prince kill himself? In fact, there were other people in the same cell and he is even taller than the place they put the rope. So, someone please tell me how it really happened?” he wondered.
“We want justice for our brother. He did not kill himself. He was murdered,” Steve Wreyou, a brother to the deceased asserted, claiming that the police did not access Prince to know his health condition before incarcerating him in the withholding cell.
“How can such a tall man hang himself on a pole that he is taller than? The police are just trying to cover up for the lawyer,” he lamented, noting, “We want all those involved, ranging from the citizen arrest to the LNP to be fully investigated because after they killed Prince, they never contacted any of his family but deposited his remains at the mortuary. Who does that?”
All effort to reach the police spokesman, Moses Carter, did not materialize as his official phone number was switched off.
However, in response to allegation that he paid tugs to humiliate and tortured Prince, Fahnbulleh described the assertion as false, misleading and a scheme to taint his hard-earned reputation, saying, “I did not pay anyone to arrest or torture Prince. He and one Barcon Shan walked to me and we boarded my official working vehicle and went to the police.”
He told this paper in an exclusive interview that in the last week of March 2024, Prince contacted him (Fahnbulleh) that he had a particular spare part for his vehicle, and could put it on his vehicle in two days.
“On April 1, Prince and another gentleman, Barcon Shan, came to my house at about 11:30pm to pick up the vehicle. I sent US$10 to Barcon to pay for the motorbike that he said they chattered. Two days later, on April 3, he charged me US$600 for the job, that is buying the steering rod and workmanship, but we settled for US$400 out of which I advanced him US$200 to get the parts,” Fahnbulleh narrated.
He said after Prince received the advance payment, he switched off his phone, something that had him worried saying, “I went to the garage and met Barcon and told him that I have been trying to contact Prince and that his phone has been off. I told Barcon I gave Prince US$200 as advance payment for the job. Barcon promised that he would get Prince to face me because Prince told him that I had not paid a dime. So, on last Thursday, he called me to meet them on 18th Street where I met them and we drove to the police. So, it baffles me to hear that I paid tugs to torture and beat Prince. It was the very Barcon in whose garage he took my car that brought him.”
He said that it was shocking to hear from an officer who claims to be the commander that Prince had hung himself in the cell. “I was shocked by the new. I wonder how that tall man could have hung himself in the cell with other detainees. I immediately send a team of human rights officers to open an investigation with the police, because Prince was healthy,” he assumed.
Fahnbulleh had always believed that his stance against corruption at the Commission is causing some of his colleagues to frame him in various scandals in order to remove him from his post at the INCHR.
Just in 2022, Fahnbulleh was investigated by a special committee set up by the Commission on allegation with a female staff of the Commission and he had also been named in several deeds mainly bordered on battering.
