The US$100million cocaine smuggling case has resumed with the defense lawyer requesting Criminal Court’C’ to prevail on the prosecution team to make available the CCTV footage to show the purported negotiation between the alleged indicted smugglers and the whistleblower.
The lawyers made the request after the prosecution’s first witness Samuel Nimely claimed that the defendants attempted to bribe him with US$200k to have his company The AJA Group Holdings release the container containing the cocaine shipped to Liberia.
“The CCTV camera outside of our offices captured the US$200k negotiations,” witness Nimely claimed when he was asked by a defense lawyer, Cllr James Kumeh, while testifying under cross examination.
When further asked by Cllr. Kumeh whether he could produce the CCTV footage showing the negotiations between him and the defendants, Nimely, the general manager of TRH Holding answered in the affirmative.
“I am going to request my technician to collect all of the conversation between us and the defendants from September 30, up to and including October 5,” ” the prosecution first witness added ” I will make sure you receive those footage. ”
What is not clear enough is that Nimely, the defense team and the court did not say when the CCTV footage will be available for screaming before the jury.
Nimely also testified that his company was offered US$200k for the entire container which, at the time, cost less than US$30k
The prosecution’s first witness also claimed that his company raised the alarm that led to the bust of the US$100 million worth of cocaine in October 2022.
“The entire transaction was captured by our CCTV camera and I am prepared to make it available,” Nimely assured the defense team while answering a question posed to him by Cllr Kumeh.
The CCTV footage question was also raised by Nimely who claimed that Oliver Zayzay, a Liberian national, and some of his foreign associates were arrested after seeking to purchase what appeared to be a shipping container full of fresh frozen pig feet from a refrigerated storage facility in Monrovia.
The amount was then increased to US$400k and, finally, to US$1 million – a red flag which forced the company to to blow the alarm that led to bursting of the drugs, which Nimely claimed he has the CCTV footage as evidence to prove his assertion.
https://www.liberianobserver.com/liberia-defense-team-requests-cctv-footage-us100m-cocaine-case
