By Chernoh Alpha M. Bah, Matthew Anderson, and Mark Feldman

About a dozen Sierra Leonean officials are due to arrive in New York early next week to inspect the Chancery Building of the Sierra Leone Mission. The building previously served as the headquarters of Sierra Leonean diplomats assigned to the United Nations in New York. It is now laying in ruins and left abandoned after Sierra Leonean foreign affairs officials and diplomats squandered nearly US$5 million earmarked for its renovation in 2019.

The corruption scandal was first reported by the Africanist Press in May 2021, and it elicited widespread discussions in Sierra Leone and abroad. Africanist Press showed transaction details on how funds transferred to New York for the alleged construction work at the Sierra Leone New York Mission headquarters were squandered between 2018 and 2020 by officials of the Maada Bio administration. The reports showed that despite transfers of over US$4.6 million in 2019 by officials of the Bio Administration for the renovation of the Chancery Building, no substantial work was done on the renovations, raising further questions regarding the potential use of the funds that were transferred for the project.

In late May 2021, Sierra Leone’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) announced an investigation into the renovation of the Chancery Building in New York after the Africanist Press reports were published. The ACC acknowledged that over US$4 million was indeed allocated for the renovation work at the Chancery Building in 2019. But instead of investigating officials of the current government, the Commission dated its investigation to 2011. Many Sierra Leoneans saw the investigation as an apparent plot to cover-up current government officials by accusing members of the previous government for transactions that occurred specifically in 2018 and 2019.

A statement issued by the ACC at the time reported that the Head of Chancery at the New York Mission, Saidu Nallo, and other parties involved in the management of the Chancery’s finances were recalled to Freetown and were detained by the Commission.

“Statements were taken from them, and they have been kept in custody since Friday, 28th May 2021. We have also recovered documents and records relevant to the investigation and they are being analyzed by our forensic analysts,” the ACC said in its press release.

Africanist Press would later discover that Nallo was, in fact, not recalled but was already in Sierra Leone on vacation when the Africanist Press published details of the corruption scandal leading to the ACC issuing a press release announcing an investigation. On 23rd November 2021, the ACC announced an indictment against five Sierra Leoneans, including Dr. Samura Kamara, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs in the previous government of Ernest Bai Koroma. The ACC’s indictment papers alleged that Kamara deceived the government of Sierra Leone by submitting an alleged cabinet document that claimed, “companies undertaking the renovation [or] construction is reliable and were subjected to a rigorous vetting process.” They also alleged that Kamara “misappropriated the sum of US$2,560,000” between January 2016 and December 2017 meant for the renovation of the Chancery Building.

But the ACC indictment showed a bias from the start: the Commission failed to include recent Foreign Affairs ministers in Freetown and their various ambassadors in New York who processed the US$4.6 million transactions in 2019; listing Kamara as the only former cabinet official to be indicted in respect of the scandal.

In Sierra Leone, many describe the Chancery Building trial as a political witch hunt aimed at Kamara, a potential leading challenger to President Bio in next year’s elections. Kamara, who now appeared as the main target of the ACC trial, had personally resigned from the Foreign Affairs Ministry ahead of the presidential elections of April 2018. His resignation occurred more than a year before the US$4.6 million transfers were initiated. The current diplomats in New York and their foreign affairs counterparts in Freetown who processed the US$4.6 million transactions are listed as prosecution witnesses against Kamara. As foreign minister, Kamara also had two former deputy foreign affairs ministers and a Director General who functioned as the administrative head of the ministry. The ACC indictment papers also listed the former director general as a witness against Kamara. The deputy ministers, all of whom were key officials in the former government, were also not mentioned in the Chancery Building case.

The trial, which commenced on 14th December 2021, has dragged on slowly with no progress reported and no clear end in sight. In the last eleven months, court proceedings have not produced any evidence linking Kamara to the diplomatic scandal. The ACC has presented 18 witnesses, including Alie Kabba who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Ambassador to the Sierra Leone UN Mission in New York between 2018 and 2021 when the US$4.6 million transactions were processed. Kabba is currently testifying as a leading witness in the proceedings. His ongoing testimony exposes more holes in the ACC’s case against Kamara, further revealing the obvious efforts of the prosecution to backdate and place the crime to 2016. The trial itself has proceeded slowly, mainly by the prosecution and dozens of adjournments from presiding judge, Adrian Fisher, who was controversially hired by the judiciary despite questions around his qualification to practice law in Sierra Leone.

Many Sierra Leoneans questioned the decision to assign the case to Fisher; describing him as a legal mercenary hired by politicians to prosecute political opponents of the Bio administration. Since his appointment, Fisher has mostly handled political cases involving opposition politicians. Two years ago, he helped prosecute former defense minister, Paolo Conteh on a questionable treason trial. Months before the treason trial, Fisher had also participated in an alleged murder trial involving former Freetown Mayor, Herbert George Williams and another opposition activist, Abubakarr Daramy. Fisher was appointed into his current high court position shortly after these questionable trials. In April 2022, he passed an infamous ruling that dismantled the extant executive structures of the All Peoples Congress (APC), the major opposition party in Sierra Leone, and appointed a caretaker executive that has largely remained dysfunctional. Court documents signed on 20th October 2022 show that Fisher has requested funds to sponsor a proposed court visit to New York. The proposed delegation will include Fisher himself, one court registrar, two anti-corruption prosecutors, lawyers representing the accused persons, and the accused officials. Fisher is asking that costs associated with their travel to New York should be financed from Sierra Leonean tax-payers funds.

“This Court held a pre-trial conference with a view to putting modalities in place for the court to visit the locus in quo of the Chancery Building in New York,” he said, whilst asking the ACC to source funding “from the government of Sierra Leone to facilitate the movement of the Court to New York.”

Fisher has asked for return air tickets and per diems for himself and the rest of the travel delegation. Court documents note that Kamara objected to the suggestion; offering instead to pay for his own travel and his lawyer’s expenses. The trip itself is estimated to cost above US$125,000 from tax-payers expenses.

Some lawyers in Sierra Leone have questioned the rationale of the proposed visit, calling it unnecessary and a waste of tax-payers funds.
“We never had a situation where a domestic trial required a presiding judge to move proceedings to a foreign jurisdiction,” one lawyer told Africanist Press, adding that, “such visits are completely unnecessary in criminal trials where investigations have been supposedly carried out by the prosecution.”

Lawyers are arguing that the site visit is outside of the judge’s responsibility in a criminal trial.
“It should be the prosecution’s burden to bring forth evidence in support of their own case. The judge’s responsibility is to adjudicate on the evidence in front of the court,” they said, adding that, “the proposed visit to New York would add nothing new by way of new evidence.”

In the last presidential elections, Bio, the current president, won narrowly against Kamara by less than 2% in both rounds of the presidential race that brought Bio to power in 2018. Four years on, Kamara’s popularity has increased, and supporters of his campaign have multiplied amidst Bio’s growing unpopularity across the country.

A real possibility of defeating Bio in next year’s elections has turned Kamara into the most obvious target for both the ruling party and Kamara’s colleagues in his own party. Kamara’s growing appeal within the rank and file of his party and the real electoral challenge he poses to President Bio has led to him being targeted by other aspirants to the ticket of the APC.

“If he succeeds to win his party’s nomination to contest against the incumbent president, Kamara is expected to defeat Bio,” some observers have noted.

“Kamara is caught between power struggles within the opposition APC, and the weaponization of the ACC against leading contenders to President Bio ahead of the 2023 elections,” an official who preferred anonymity said, adding that the government’s handling of the Chancery Building case raises doubts over the administration’s lack of sincerity in its fight against corruption.

In a 2021 report, the State Department noted that despite the increased number of corruption investigations, the ACC has “often failed to indict the most senior officials involved in corruption, charging lower-level officials instead.”

Criticisms of the ACC’s approach to fight corruption have increased in the last two years with many citizens questioning the objectivity and independence of the Commission.

We produce below the 2018 Bank Statement  and the 2019 Traansactions of the Sierra Leone foreign affairs ministry showing evidence of the transfers to New York for the renovation of the Chancery Building.