Today Friday, March 19, 2010, all ears, all eyes of interested parties, ordinary Liberians and foreigners alike look to the Criminal Court B at the Temple of Justice where the final verdict is expected to be handed down in the drawn-out Angel Togba murder trial.

Judge Blamo Dixon, having had the time to listen to arguments of both prosecution and defense lawyers and perused all the evidence presented to him through documentation, will make his final determination in the case which engendered both national and international interests, particularly on the loss of the life of a promising young girl.

According to reports gathered by this paper, the Criminal Court B Judge will take the stand at 11:00 am to render his ruling and that may last for an hour.

As he gets prepared in few hours time to do one of the most intriguing responsibilities of a sitting judge, the overriding question on the lips of all Liberians, is on whom the axe is going to fall.

Certainly and without confusion, it has to be in the favor of one of the parties to the case –the prosecution which is the government and the defense representing the accused who have traded accusations and counter-argued one another’s presentations in order to establish a case of interest.

“One party will have to go home triumphantly while another party will leave the courtroom very despondingly, and this is a normal life situation,” a lawyer intoned to our reporter.

Two persons, Hans Williams and his fiancée, Madea Paykue are the innermost accused in the death of the little girl about two years ago and they are eagerly waiting to hear “You are guilty, or your are not guilty” from the lips of the man who directed the pace of the case as the umpire from the start to the time it is expected to come to an end today.

It is unquestionably a Herculean task for the young Judge but as an experienced person he is likely to take courage from the fact his decision today will primarily be based on the facts and evidences adduced in court, legal observers have opined.

Already Judge Dixon, according to one of the local dailies, is beseeching the public to pray for him as he performs one of the most tedious responsibilities in the career of a sitting judge.

While asking for God’s direction and counsel, Judge Dixon has also commended both prosecution and defense teams for demonstrating good cooperative deportment during the entire trial process.

“I want to commend the defense and prosecution teams for their level of cooperation from the beginning of this case as well as the general public and the press,” he said but called on them to pray for him for “a good ruling.”

Judge Dixon is quoted by the Democrat as saying that the Angel Togba case has attracted lots of attention.

One thing that seems to be running through his mind as he gets prepared for the final ruling is how people may respond and as such, he braved the storm to warn spectators  who will hear the final ruling not to “come with any weapon for the good of justice.”

Genesis of the case

The case of the late Angel Togba erupted on November 27, 2007, when her comatose body was found in the bathroom of his guardian, Hans Williams and Madea Paykue who later reported the incident to the police that the girl had hung herself.

The accused said the deceased, 13 years old, hanged herself but the Liberian Government denied the claims and said she was strangulated to death and later hanged.

It took weeks to depose of her remains as women organizations and ordinary Liberians demonstrated and urged the government to conduct forensic examination to establish the existent cause of Togba’s death.

In respect to the several calls and contentions from women groups and organizations as well as ordinary Liberians who attach value to the importance of human life, the government hired the services of an examiner, one Doctor Quiee to conduct forensic examination on the body of the little girl to confirm or rebuff claims by her guardians she hanged herself.

In his report, Dr. Quiee’s concluded that the girl committed suicide, which means she hanged herself and not from strangulation as was being claimed by other organizations, especially women groups.

Instead of calming the already troubled waters, his report flagged up more tension thus prompting the government to send for a Ghanaian Pathologist who following weeks of examination of the decomposed body of the deceased reported that the girl was “sexually abused and strangulated to death.”

But defense counsel of the accused, Cllr. Musa Dean apparently not convinced by the Ghanaian Pathologist findings, with the acquiescence of the Liberian Government brought in a pathologist from North America whose report also confirmed what Dr. Quiee had said in his findings.

 The Marathon trial

With these rather troubling and conflicting reports from various forensic examinations conducted on the remains of the late Togba, 13, the Liberian Government initiated his legal battle against the accused, Williams and Paykue.

The case has been ongoing going at the Criminal Court A under the jurisdiction of Judge Blamo Dixon, formerly County Attorney of Montserrado County.

The trial itself as other trials have been, have produced shocks considering the weights of the testimonies of the many witnesses produced in court by both prosecution and defense teams.

One lawyer once said “witnesses like to play to the game of cases by rendering fallacies rather than facts and truths which are most important credentials judges use to determine the outcome of cases.”

The Liberian Government which prosecuted the case produced about 11 witnesses in court, all testifying against the accused while the defense team unmatched the government with about 7 to 8 witnesses.

In their respective presentations, both witnesses told the court what they knew of the circumstances and nitty-gritty of the death of the girl.

Following the exhaustion of the testimonies of the direct witnesses, both prosecution and defense teams produced two rebuttal witnesses each, to either counter-act or confirm direct witnesses assertions.

The trial has lasted for two terms of court, which observers said bespeaks its significance, noting that it will go down in the annals of judicial history.

 Public Views

The Liberian public, which has been following the marathon case involving the state and the accused, since its eruption, has expressed dissenting views.

“This is one of the major cases the state has ever pursued since, the sitting of the Ellen-led administration, besides two or three economic crimes cases, some of which it (government) lost. And what makes this case very significant is the fact it has no jurors. It is only the Judge, who based on the evidence adduced by both parties is going to make a determination. My wish is that whatever ruling he comes down with, all parties will not resort to wrongful actions which could bring the already “ailing judicial’ according to US government latte reports  process in the jeopardy,”  remarked a legal mind who begged for anonymity.

According to him, it is conventionally known that one of any two parties in a case will have to lose. He said judges make determination of cases not on interest, but on whatever evidence he gathers to support all accompanying claims.

“Judge Dixon is not new to the process, so he exactly knows what he is going to do today. Politics and laws are two distinct professions governed by provisions and this is what the Judge carries with him whenever he finds himself in a situation of a case,” he said.

Also commenting on the case, another legal mind told this paper that the judge is not going to make his determination on the basis of the “demonstrations and agitations of various groups, especially women who tried to politicize the case.”

He said, by law, when any party is not satisfied with the decision of the judge, the best thing is to take appeal to the Supreme Court, the highest arbiter of justice in Liberia as provided by the Liberian Constitution.

He appealed to all parties to ensure the tenets of the law are followed to the latter in the case because “the law is the law and should be underrated for whatever reasons.”

If the verdict is a ‘not guilty, the accused will walk out of the courtroom triumphantly and make the night for the first time in months in the house their trouble began, and if it is ‘guilty,’ they will either be sentenced for life or put to death depending on the judge’s decision.