By: Haja Hawa Koroma
For the past few days, a story of an alleged shooting to death of one of the Joint presidential guard force at state lodge has been making rounds on social media. A lot of citizens have been involved in this discuss, tendering different opinions about the said incident.
This has drawn the attention of the Ministry of Defense which hereby led to the issuing out of a press release from the office of the Directorate of Defence, Public Relations and Information of the Ministry of Defense Tower Hill on the 31st May 2022.
According to the message that is in circulation on social media, a soldier by the name of Sergeant Barrie was allegedly shot and killed at the President’s lodge because he made a statement on the delay for the supply of take home rice for the month of May 2022. The MoD claims this story to be completely false and utterly misleading.
The MoD therefore issued out the press release to properly inform the general public of the correct account of the incident which led to the unfortunate death of the RSLAF soldier.
According to the press release, on the 17th May 2022, a civilian residing at No. 49 Davies Drive Hill Station, made a distress call to Staff Sergeant Barrie and Sergeant Tucker, who was a close friend of his, requesting for assistance to contain the unruly behavior of his son. The two soldiers immediately went to his premises unarmed. Whilst the two soldiers were both attentively listening to him, his son unexpectedly appeared with a knife and stabbed both Sergeant Tucker and Staff Sergeant Barrie.
The two soldiers sustained major injuries and were immediately taken to the 34 Military Hospital at Wilberforce Barracks. Unfortunately, Staff Sergeant Barrie died moments later as a result of this, whilst Sergeant Tucker is still responding to treatment.
The suspect was arrested the same day and was handed over to the Sierra Leone Police at Hill Top Police Station Mountain Division for investigation.
Citizens are hereby advised to avoid publishing or spreading false messages on social media that are inciting and misleading to soldiers as such acts has the potential to incite soldiers which may affect the peace and security of the country.
MoD sympathizes with the bereaved family and wants the public to know that they unequivocally condemn the stabbing of a serving military personnel.
