TUBMANBURG, Bomi – The hearing for the alleged human trafficking and gang rape case involving fourteen Liberian girls and Lebanese businessman Abbas El Debes has been postponed for the second time.

Defendants Abbas El Debes, Richard Dickson Tamba, Bashir Lakis, Ghazi Bashar and Hayah Debes were charged with the crimes of illicit trafficking in human beings, migrant smuggling, gang rape and criminal conspiracy.

Last Friday, government lawyers led by Attorney David Woah, during the commencement of hearing into the case, pleaded with Judge William Sando to grant them more time to bring their witnesses to court.

Woah told the court that they had attempted bringing the 14 girls to serve as state witnesses but the vehicle transporting them broke down while en route to the court from Margibi.

Lawyers representing defendant El Debes, dismissed the explanation and instead called the government’s move “a tactic employed by state prosecutors to delay the trial.”

Defense lawyers Cooper Kruah and Arthur Johnson said the failure of the government to bring state witnesses to court was intended to baffle the trial and traumatize the defendant.

The Bomi Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court Judge Sando granted the request for the postponement of the case.

The Bush Chicken contacted Jurna P. Karnley, County Attorney of Bomi for comments as to why the case did not commence. Karnley said he was stocked when the prosecutors team requested the court that an impaneled jury be selected before commencing the case.

“Predicated on the prosecution team’s request, Judge Sando immediately wrote his Honor Chief Justice Francis Kporkor that an impaneled jury be selected and [isolated],” Karnlay said.

The County Attorney of Bomi County said the proceedings could not continue without an impaneled jury.  He stressed “Though it’s capital intensive, the judiciary branch of the government will have to take the responsibility.

“We want to have the jurors [isolated from] the public during the time of the trial”, Karnley asserted.

Cllr. Jurna P. Karnley, County Attorney of Bomi County. Photo: Zeze Ballah

Karnley said the case involving the 14 Liberian girls is very important to the state, noting “it is going to expose lot of negative things happening in the country”.

When asked whether government had the evidence to prosecute defendant Abbas El Debes, Karnley replied that at the proper time, his side would bring their witnesses to court to testify against the defendant.

After the reading of the indictment, El Debes pleaded not guilty of the charges leveled against him by the state.

George C. Katakpah, Chief Jury Manager. Photo: Zeze Ballah

At the Temple of Justice, George C. Katakpah, the Chief Jury Manager, said his office received a request from the court in Bomi for a place to keep the jurors before commencing the trial.

“We were able to get a secure and comfortable place for the jurors,” Katakpah said, adding that the “jurors selected will have to be responsible people.”

A total of 15 jurors will be selected for the trial and a staff of three attorneys and two sheriffs will take care of the jurors for the duration of the trial.

Court documents obtained by The Bush Chicken reveals that El Debes and the other defendants were charged in Montserrado and indicted on May 3, 2015 by the Republic of Liberia.

El Debes was incarceration at the Monrovia Center Prison while his colleagues absconded since news broke about the trafficked Liberian girls in Lebanon.

Defense lawyers immediately filed a motion to grant El Debes bail but that was rejected by Resident Circuit Judge of Montserrado county Ceaineh Clinton-Johnson on grounds that some of the charges were felonies of the first degree.

Defense lawyers finally filed a motion of severance trial for their client which was granted by Judge Clinton-Johnson. That now allows the defendant to receive separate trials on each of the different charges. El Debes is now incarcerated at the Tubmanburg Central Prison.

Featured photo: Flickr’s jbdodane