MONROVIA - Former Finance and Development Planning Minister Samuel D. Tweah Jr. has accused Vice President Jeremiah Kpan Koung of instructing Criminal Court 'C' Judge Ousman F. Feika to overturn his May 8 jury acquittal in the US$6.2 million economic sabotage case, a charge that lands on the eve of Judge Feika's anticipated ruling on jury misconduct allegations and threatens to plunge one of Liberia's most politically combustible prosecutions into open crisis.
In a lengthy Facebook post on Monday, Mr. Tweah alleged that the directive was handed to Judge Feika last Thursday "after a lengthy Government discussion on the pros and cons and after a national security assessment," and he vowed to defy any retrial that may follow.
"Vice President Jeremiah Koung has instructed Judge Ousmane Feika to overturn a verdict of acquittal on a bogus and spurious allegation of 'jury misconduct,' though the judge finds no evidence linking me or my lawyers to any misconduct, whatever that means," Mr. Tweah wrote.
The former minister offered no documentation for the claim, which he attributed to "my intelligence." Vice President Koung, the Executive Mansion and the judiciary had not publicly responded to the allegations at the time of publication, and The Liberian Investigator could not independently verify that any such directive was given to Judge Feika.
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Mr. Tweah went further, claiming the government has been deadlocked for a month over what he said many officials and "some Justices on the Supreme Court bench" consider an unprecedented overreach. He quoted those voices as warning: "We cannot destroy the judiciary because of Samuel Tweah. The man won his case and it would be dangerous to overturn a jury verdict when recently Abdullah Kamara's verdict of acquittal was unanimous. It shows the Government is witch hunting and cherry picking in corruption cases."
In response, Mr. Tweah alleged, the Vice President told the Justices and others that "winning election is more important for their Government than protecting the rule of law."
The accusations set the stage for a dramatic showdown at the Temple of Justice, where Judge Feika is expected to rule Wednesday on the outcome of his post-verdict inquiry into alleged jury misconduct. The inquiry, believed to be without precedent in a Liberian criminal case, was triggered by sworn affidavits from three of the trial jurors alleging breaches of sequestration rules, including unauthorized contacts, movements outside the supervision of court bailiffs and access to mobile phones during the trial.
The probe has already collided with the Supreme Court once. Associate Justice Yussif D. Kaba, sitting in Chambers, ruled in June that the investigation could proceed only in open court with both prosecution and defense present, after Tweah's lawyers sought a writ of prohibition to block Judge Feika from reopening proceedings through private interviews. Defense lawyers later escalated with a counter-demand that the court subpoena and publish the complete telephone call logs of every party connected to the trial, including state prosecutors.
Legally, Judge Feika has three broad options: dismiss the allegations and affirm the acquittal, nullify the verdict and order a retrial on grounds of proven misconduct, or extend the inquiry. Mr. Tweah insists there is only one.
"Judge Feika has only one option and that is to issue my certificate of freedom tomorrow. If he refuses, I will submit to no bogus political trial in violation of my constitutional rights. I am a free man," he wrote. "They wanted to make me a 'criminal;' they can now have me as a freedom fighter."
Mr. Tweah, along with former Financial Intelligence Agency Comptroller D. Moses P. Cooper, was cleared of economic sabotage, theft of property, money laundering, criminal conspiracy and criminal facilitation after a weeks-long trial before Criminal Court "C" over the alleged unauthorized withdrawal and disbursement of more than US$6.2 million and L$1 billion in funds tied to national security operations under former President George Manneh Weah. Co-defendants Nyenati Tuan, Stanley S. Ford and Jefferson Karmoh were convicted on selected counts, and their motion for a new trial remains suspended pending the outcome of the misconduct probe.
The former minister anchored his defiance in the case of Abdullah L. Kamara, the suspended Liberia Telecommunications Authority chairman whom a Grand Bassa County jury unanimously acquitted in June of all corruption charges tied to the Liberia Digital Transformation Project, his second exoneration in the same matter. Critics of the Boakai administration have seized on the back-to-back acquittals as evidence that the government's flagship anti-corruption prosecutions are collapsing under weak evidence, while officials maintain the verdicts prove due process is being respected.
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Invoking the deaths of Gabriel Kpolleh, Jackson F. Doe and other political martyrs of Liberia's autocratic past, Mr. Tweah declared that "the law is bigger today than the whims of any President or Vice President" and warned that if Judge Feika or Chief Justice Sie-A-Nyene Gyapay Yuoh's successor, Chief Justice Yamie Quiqui Gbeisay, cannot withstand what he called "manipulations and interferences" from the Vice President, he would take up the fight himself.
"Now that Liberians know I was falsely accused and am a free man and a political target of the Reckless Mission, I welcome this political fight. Bring it on!" he wrote, closing with the rallying cry "Amanda!!! Tyranny Abash!"
Mr. Tweah said he will address the media Wednesday.
