Sweeping changes are pending at the Ministry of Justice that will see the Minister and several lieutenants bow out for other alternatives, according to informed sources.

Cllr. Phillip A. Z. Banks, on the job for barely a year, will give way to Professor Christiana Tah, a professor of Sociology at Montgomery College in the US who was unsuccessfully nominated on the Supreme Court Bench. Cllr. Banks is currently out of the country after unsuccessfully defending the Government's position on the use of the US0.52 million seized from an alleged Nigerian drug trafficker arrested upon entry here in 2007. He is expected to come and meet his successor.

Sources told this paper that Prof. Tah had been promised the job months ago, but that she insisted on installing her own corps of officers at the Ministry. Mrs. Tah, an official in the William R. Tolbert administration, is already in town from the United States, sources say.

One of those in-coming corps of officers, sources said, is Cllr. Marcus Wright, expected to take over from Cllr. Tiawan Gongloe as Solicitor General. Cllr. Wright has served on the government's prosecution twam in a number of cases as a hired lawyer.

Another in coming official is Mr. Lemeul Reeves, who is said to have worked in the Charles Taylor regime but is now outside government in foreign parts, is expected to be named Deputy Minister for Public Safety.

Deputy Justice Minister for Administration, Ms. Eva Mae Mappy Morgan, is expected to stay on.

Liberian National Police

Police Chief Mrs. Beatrice Munah Sieh-Brown is expected to bow out for Mr. Marc Amblah, Deputy Director for the National Security Agency, an intelligence collection group from its inception. Unconfirmed reports say Mrs. Brown is slated for the Presidential guards the Special Security Service, while semilar reports hint that Mr. Fomba Sirleaf, currently chief of the National Security Agency, a spy service, could go to the army as Chief of Staff.

Efforts to officially confirm these at the Executive Mansion proved futile Wednesday.

There is yet no official reason for this shake-up at the Ministry, but sources say this could be the result of government loosing major landmark cases that could have boost its much touted fight against corruption.

The Government has been marred with legal setbacks in its declared war against corruption, losing nearly all landmark cases. It lost the National Social Security and Welfare Corporation (NASSCORP)case against the entity's former top Managers who were accused of stealing pensioners fund to the tune of over US1 million. The case which was described as the first major test of government's fight against corruption, was soon followed by the famous trason trial, with the latest being the Economy Sabotage case against former Transitional Chairman, Charles Gyude Bryant, Representative Edwin Snowe, Senator Richard Divne amongst several others linked to the transfer of monies from the coffers of the Liberia Petroleum Refining Company (LPRC).

But in a press statement issued over the weekend, expected outgoing Solicitor General Cllr. Tiawan Gongloe attempted defending his prosecution team, saying contrary to public criticism of their dismal performance they won more case than have been perceived.

Cllr. Gongloe said the Prosecution Department has won more cases, saying since 2006, the government has obtained 286 convictions out of 357 cases tried, adding that the number of acquittals in three years have been 71 compared with 286 convictions. He said this means that the government has won 286 cases or 80.1% of the case tried and lost 71 cases or 19.9% of the cases tried.

"Out of the cases won by government 31 were murder cases, 41 rape cases, 9 armed robbery cases and 27 aggravated assault cases, with the rest being other criminal cases. One of the murder cases won by government was the one in which a Ghanaian Bishop was Killed in Logan Town. There was also the River Gee murder case in which 14 young men killed 6 elderly persons by sassywood," he said.

Cllr. Gongloe: "In the case of rape, the case of the four little girls that were raped by three members of the Never Die Church was one of the cases won by the government. Another high profile case that the government won is the case of the half a billion dollars worth of cocaine that was seized by government. For theft of property, the famous, among the cases won were the theft cases involving Rechelieu David of LBDI who, through electronic fraud stole over United States two hundred thousand dollars from Liberia Bank for Development and Investment (LBDI) and that of Chris Eugene Taylor and others who, also by electronic fraud, stole over one hundred thousand United States Dollars from the Central Bank of Liberia."

"There was another theft case won by government, involving one Ernest Cholopray and others, employees of ECOBANK, who were accused of using their positions to steal over three hundred thousand United States dollars from ECOBANK," he said, adding, "It should be noted that this is the first time in the history of Liberia that prosecution has won this number of cases in three years. Prosecution challenges anyone to show that there has been a better record than this one on prosecution in the history of Liberia."

However, he conceded that the acquittal of Orishall Gould, the former Managing Director of National Social Security and Welfare Corporation (NASSCORP) and others indicted for Economic Sabotage, and the acquittal of Charles Gyude Bryant, former Transitional Head of State of Liberia, Edwin Melvin Snowe, Managing Director of the Liberia Petroleum Refinery Company (LPRC) along with Senator Richard Devine, his former deputy and others for also indicted Economic Sabotage, as well as the acquittal of Senator Roland Kaine who was charged with murder along with fifteen (15) others, have made some Liberians to disregard the gains made by the prosecution.

"Let it be noted that in the Economic Sabotage cases that the government has lost, it was assisted by very highly qualified lawyers. In the case of Orishall Gould, NASSCORP retained the services of Counselors Beyan Howard, Charles Abdullai and Cyril Jones and in the case of Bryant, Snowe and others government retained the services of Cllrs. J. Emmanuel Berry, M. Wilkins Wright and Emmanuel James to assist the prosecution. Therefore, the issue of weakness of the prosecution has no factual basis when one considers the number of cases that have been won by the prosecution and the caliber of retained lawyers who participated in those cases that the government lost. Winning and losing cases are central to the judicial process.

Prosecution has dealt with four anti-corruption cases. It has won one and lost three. In a society in which corruption is almost an acceptable cultural norm, these results should not surprise anyone," he said.