Liberia: Kemayah Tests Tweah's Blueprint

What the report says

Liberia’s latest high-profile corruption case is being shaped by the fallout from an earlier courtroom reversal, according to the Liberian Observer. On Monday in Monrovia, former Foreign Minister Dee-Maxwell Saah Kemayah Sr. and more than a dozen other former officials from the Weah administration appeared for arraignment at Criminal Court C over allegations tied to donated rice meant for disaster victims. Prosecutors say the case involves 29,412 bags of rice donated by Saudi Arabia in 2023, with 25,000 bags allegedly diverted instead of reaching intended beneficiaries in counties including River Cess and Margibi.

The defendants, who include former GSA head and ex-Monrovia mayor Mary Broh and former Internal Affairs Minister Varney A. Sirleaf, face charges such as theft of property, economic sabotage, misuse of public money, abuse of office and criminal conspiracy. Their lawyers immediately asked for a 15-member jury panel with alternates, echoing the strategy used in the Samuel Tweah trial, and cited Liberia’s constitutional right to a jury trial unless waived. The case is being prosecuted by the Assets Recovery and Property Retrieval Taskforce.

The article says the legal and political stakes are heightened by what happened in the Tweah case. In that earlier matter, a jury acquitted former Finance Minister Samuel D. Tweah Jr. and another official before the verdict was later set aside after juror misconduct allegations, with all 15 jurors detained for contempt. Tweah is appealing. The current trial is seen as a test of whether Liberia’s anti-corruption efforts and jury system can withstand intense scrutiny.