By: Audrey Raymonda John
Magistrate Mark Ngegba of Pademba Road Court No.1 has on Friday 30th September 2022 sentenced Sento Conteh to two years imprisonment as she was found guilty of exposing body by dancing naked during the August 10 riot at Makeni.
The convict was arraigned before the Court on a count of indecent exposure contrary to the law of Sierra Leone.
The charge sheet indicated that the accused on 10 August 2022 at Makeni Township indecently exposed herself.
After the charges were read and explain to the accused she pleaded guilty to the offense.
State prosecutor Yusuf Isaac Sesay in his brief fact said the accused on the said day of the riot stripped herself naked in a video that went viral.
He said the video shows the genital and other private parts of the accused.
He added that the accused has not wasted the court time but ask that the Magistrate should sentence the accused to serve a jail term of two year five months imprisonment so that it will serve as warning to others.
Sesay continue that the accused could be a mother, sister or a girlfriend that has brought shame to womanhood as what she did was not only legally wrong but morally wrong also
Defence Counsel G. Conteh in his plea mitigation said the accused has not wasted the court time as she has pleaded guilty of the offence, he added that the accused is a first time offender and has never been in conflict of the law.
He said the circumstances leading to the indecent exposure are not known as she lost her husband and child.
He pleaded with the magistrate to have mercy on the accused and said that she should be caution and discharge or pay a minimum fine.
Magistrate Ngeba said the maximum fine for such an offence should not exceed more than ten thousand Leones and the jail term should be three years imprisonment.
In that note he therefore sentence the accused to a jail term of two years imprisonment.