MONROVIA, Montserrado – Rep. Yekeh Kolubah and five others have been restricted from traveling out of the country by a court order.
Judge Roosevelt Willie of Criminal Court A issued the travel restriction for Kolubah, who represents Montserrado’s tenth district, and five other individuals on June 26 after state prosecutors requested the move against the lawmaker, Mohammed Keita, Abu Keita, Oliver Konneh, Johnson Kpor, and Mohammad Kaba.
The lawmaker and the five individuals were jointly indicted by the Grand Jury of Montserrado for multiple criminal offenses, including aggravated assault, criminal conspiracy, kidnapping, and criminal attempt to commit murder.
The indictment indicates that the defendants, who also include the lawmaker’s personal security guard, were charged for their involvement in the kidnapping and flogging of Emmanuel Freeman, who they accused of thievery, in the Old Road community, leaving him to need intensive medical care at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Medical Center.
Kolubah was probed by the Liberia National Police on June 5 and released prior to the June 18 indictment.
While his co-defendants were released on the same day of the indictment after their lawyer filed a property insurance bond, the lawmaker was yet to show up to respond to his indictment.
He walked to the court along with Lofa’s first and fifth districts representatives, Francis Nyumalin and Beyan Howard, and Rep. Thomas Gosuah of Grand Bassa’s fifth district and turned himself on Tuesday, June 25, a day before the travel ban was issued.
The prosecution, in its petition to the court, claimed that the defendants were at flight risk and could evade being prosecuted by secretly leaving the country since they were released on a surety property bail bond.
Willie, meanwhile, ordered that state securities at various border entrances arrest the living body of any of the defendants who will attempt to violate the order by leaving the country.
Featured photo by Zeze Ballah
