Lansana Roberts & Others v S (CR APP 16 of 2014) [2020] SLCA 20 (26 August 2020)

.y CRAPS 10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17/2014 ne ho J8C, <" "INTHE COURT OF APPEAL OF STERRA LEONE an 2 ANTI-CORRUPTION CRIMINAL APPEALS. LANSANA ROBERTS ~ 157 APPELLANT OR MAGNUS KEN GBORTE ~ 28° APPELLANT DR EDWARD MAGBITY - 3° APPELLANT vs THE STATE RESPONDENT CORAM; THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE N C BROWNE-MARKE JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE A H CHARM, JA (later, CJ, now out of office) THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE ALUSINE SESAY JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT COUNSEL: IMRAN KANU ESQ for the State + ©. ( ba poSnn + AS SESAY ESQ for 1" Appellant NI She MMP FOFANAH ESQ for the 2” Appellant 4.55 | onnuna ~f TS YILLA ESQ for the 3" Appellant . z BROWNE-MARKE, JSC N JUDGMENT DELIVERED THE 26"DAY OF AUGUST, 4020 4

Introduction

1. Eight appeals were filed in this Court's Registry by the 3 Appellants herein, ‘and all 8 of them were heard together as one appeal, as all 3 Appellants were convicted and sentenced at the same trial, The Record of the appeals runs into 3 volumes. The respective Notices of Appeal are in Volume 3 and begin at page 931 of the record. These notices of appeals were subsequently ‘amended. All references hereafter to page numbers, are to pages of the Record,

<THE APPEALS . - 157 APPELLANT LANSANA ROBERTS’ APPEALS. ss

2. We shall start with the 1 Appellant, Lansana Roberts’ appeal, Cr App 10/2014 which was filed by him on 17" July, 2014, and it is an application for leave to appeal against sentence alone ~ pages 9318932. An application for leave to appeal against sentence alone, is a requirement of Section 57(1)(c) of the Courts’ Act, 1965, as amended, and of the Court of Appeal Rules, 1985, And as has been the practice in this Court, leave is always perfunctorily granted, and the application itself is treated as the appeal on the first day of hearing, The sentence of the Court below was that the 1°" Appellant shall pay a fine of Le132,175,000 and, shall serve a term of imprisonment for 6 years, the same to run concurrently, and that he remain in prison custody until such time as the fine is paid, The grounds of appeal are as follows; i, That the sentence pronounced by the Learned Judge is illegal and not provided for in law. ii, Alternatively, that a portion of the sentence pronounced by the trial Judge is void and illegal iii, That the sentence is manifestly excessive iv, That the Judge exhibited bias and malice for the Appellant in his remarks when sentencing.

3. He therefore sought the following reliefs frdm this Court.

i, That his sentence be overturned and the same quashed.

ii, That, alternatively, the Court do substitute its own sentence.

iii, Any further or other sentence the Court may deem fit and just, taking into account the circumstances of the case in totality.

4. On27 January, 2015, the 1* Appellant filed amended grounds of appeal against sentence. The grounds are not significantly different from those originally filed, and the reliefs sought, remain the same.

5. The Notice of Appeal against conviction on a question of law, was also filed on 17 July, 2014 - see pages 933 -

934. At pages 935 - 936, is the 1* Appellant's application for leave to appeal against his conviction on mixed law and facts, and it is also dated 17 July, 2014. The grounds of appeal against conviction both on questions of law, and on questions of mixed fact and law,

7 ‘taken together, amount to this: The Learned Trial Judge did not apply, or, é failed to apply the law relating to Misappropriation of donor funds contrary : to section 37(1) of the Anti-Corruption Act, 2008 - hereafter, the . “ACA ,2008" "to the facts of the case, The Learned Trial Judge is also said

| to have tohewe drawn negative inferences from the 1* Appellant's exercise | of his right not to incriminate himself, and to have reversed the legal burden of proof. He also relied on evidence extraneous to the case before him. He is also alleged to have made prejudicial comments during the course of the trial. The verdict reached was therefore unreasonable, or, could not be supported, having regard to the evidence. For these reasons, the 1" Appellant prayed that his conviction be set aside and a verdict of acquittal be entered in its stead,

6. As in the case of his appeal against sentence, on 27 January, 2015, the 1" Appellant amended his grounds of appeal on questions of law, The ‘amendments proper, are not essentially different from those originally filed: what the Appellant did this time round, was to flesh out the grounds by citing passages in the Judgment which supported the grounds filed earlier. I suppose the Record was not available at the time the original notice was filed.

7. The same goes for the amended grounds of appeal against conviction on questions of mixed fact and law. The grounds proper remain the same, but they are now supported by copious quotes from the Learned Judge's

Judgment

28° APPELLANT DR GBORIE'S APPEALS i G

8. The 2" Appellant, DrGborie, likewise filed 2 “Applications for leave to appeal ‘against sentence, and against his conviction on mixed fact and law: and an ‘appeal against sentence on questions of law. These respective appeals are at pages 937 to

945. He was convicted on Counts 3, 4 and 17 of the Indictment on which he was jointly tried with the other Appellants, The sentence was

that he pay a cumulative fine of Le243,300,000 and that he serve a term of 6 years in prison, the prison terms to run concurrently in respect of the Counts on which he was convicted. One of the grounds of his appeal against sentence, is that specifically, the sentences imposed were not warranted in, nor supported by law. Sections 233, 234, and 235 of the Criminal

. ProcedureAct, 1965 as amended, are relied on for this ground, Further, that : these sentences were manifestly excessive, He contended also that the - Learned Trial Judge exhibited bias during the trial, These grounds were . amended by way of Notice filed on 4"* February 2015

9. In his appeal against conviction on questions of law - pages 940 -942, the 2" Appellant contended that he was convicted on allegations not contained in the Indictment on which he was tried; that the Learned Trial Judge cast the legal burden of proof on him; that he was hostile and clearly prejudiced, and that as such, the verdicts were unreasonable and could not be supported by

The Evidence

These grounds were amended by way of notice filed on 4 February, 2015. Therein, he complained also that the Learned Trial Judge erred in law in that he "infringed" his right to silence, and the privilege he held, against self-incrimination. In his new ground 4, he contended that, to quote him: "The Learned Trial Judge erred in law to have included, without lawful justification, the legal ingredients of the of fences of ‘accepting an advantage’ (as charged in Counts 18 & 19 respectively of the Indictment) and “willfully failing to comply with the law relating to procurement services” as charged in Count 17 of the Indictment, in his analysis of Counts 3 and 4 of the Indictment on the offence of "misappropriation" and vice versa, It is contended that such inclusions rendered the said Counts duplicitous.”

10. In the appeal on questions of mixed facts and law - pages 943 « 945, additional allegations are made that the Learned Trial Judge did not treat the 2" Appellant's statement from the dock in the proper and atcepted

| manner, in that he rejected the exculpatory portions, but PAR whet) «

appeared to be the inculpatory ones. He contends further that the Learned “ Trial Judge relied on extraneous evidence in arriving at his respactive verdicts, and that he was hostile and exhibited bias throughout the trial. These grounds were also amended and amplified by way of notice filed on 4" February, 2015, particularly, that relating to the way the Learned Trial Judge handled the Appellant's unsworn statement from the dock.

3°° APPELLANT DR MAGBITY'S APPEALS

11, We now turn to the appeals brought by the 3rd Appellant, DrMagbity. They are at pages 946 - 948, 952-54. First, his application for leave to appeal cogainst sentence. He was convicted on 12 Counts in all - 11 Counts for

The pages read for this report end here. The judgment continues in the PDF.