By: Audrey Raymonda John
David Sahr Moseray the Administrative head of Sierra Leone Commercial Bank Kissy Branch has on Wednesday 30th August 2023, testified before magistrate Mark Ngegba of Court No1 in the alleged one Billion old Leones theft at the bank involving two of their staff John Kamara and Muctarr Balegu.
The accused persons were arraigned on three counts charges ranging from Conspiracy to defraud contrary to law and causing money to be paid by false pretences contrary to section 32 1 of the larceny Act 1916.
According to the particulars of offences for count one, the accused persons on a date unknown between Thursday 1st December 2022 and 17th January 2023, at the Sierra Leone Commercial Bank Kissy Branch, conspired together with other person’s unknown to defraud the said Bank to the tune of one Billion old Leones and 48 thousand united states dollars property of the said Bank.
The police further alleged on count two that the first accused John Kamara on the same dates and at the same bank fraudulently caused the payment of One Billion old Leones into the account of Ishmail Sillah by means of false pretenses. Whiles Count three added that the second accused Muctarr Balegu on the same dates at Sierra Leone Commercial Bank Waterloo branch fraudulently caused the payment of nine hundred million old Leones into the account of Ishmail Sillah by means of false pretences.
First prosecution witness (PW1) David Sahr Moseray led in evidence by ASP Dahlia Wellington said he is the administrative head of the bank Kissy Branch.
He said he is in charge of all deposit at the bank and recognize the accused persons as his colleague.
He recalled between 1st December 2022 and 17January 2023, stating that on 13 January 2023, he was in the office doing morning routing check when he notice that a credit to the amount of one Billion old Leones was deposited to Ismail Sillah’s account.
He said he notice that the credit was deposited by the second accused and went to the accused and asked him about the said deposit.
The witness said the accused told him that someone came to do deposit the said amount at the bank but does not have an account with the bank and pleaded with him to deposit the money into his account and he did.
” I return to work the following morning and started investigating again and notice that that second accused tried to erase and transfer the deposit to another account.
The one billion Leones according to the witness was withdrawn from the SLRSA welfare account and said he has the withdrawal slip.
The witness added that, he notice that one Ishmeal Sillah did a counter check ten times and gave it to the second accused.
According to the witness, that process was very wrong; adding that according to the processes and procedure of the bank, there is a designated staff to do so.
The said evidence he said was forwarded to the CID.
The said counter cheaques were produced and tendered respectively.
Defense lawyer DJ Lavalley objected to the tendering of the documents on the grounds that the said documents were not counter cheaques, adding that there is nothing connecting the second accused persons to the documents.
His objections were overruled by the magistrate on the grounds that he did not cite any law.
”When the second accused received the counter cheaques, what he did was that he used saving remarks on current account to debit SLRSA staff account ten times valued 100 million old Leones and signed on the withdrawal slip as if it was the correct persons that signed the withdrawal slip and that was the wrong process because one cannot used savings account to do a withdrawal process”, he narrated.
According to the witness, what Ishmeal Sillah did was to instruct the second accused to debit 100 million, noting that when he authorized the payment, they notice that the same amount was debited to the second accused account.
Upon investigation, Moseray said they realized that Ishmeal Sillah sent an email to the first accused to debit 900 million Leones and further sent a sprigging movement of 900 million to Waterloo branch virtually.
Sprigging movement according to him is moving fiscal cash from one branch to another branch.
First accused according to the witness went to his accountant and uses her system to authorize the transactions and did another virtually treasury transaction of 900 million and gave it to one of the teller to debit to Ishmeal Sillah account.
The savings withdrawal slip that was used to debit Ishmeal Sillah account was prepared and signed by the first accused.
On 28 December 2022, the witness said Ishmeal Sillah went to another branch at cline town and withdrew 100 million old Leones, stating for the Waterloo branch to be balance the first accused did a virtual transaction to debit Ishmeal Sillah account.
The witness said for the bank not to lost customers, the said one Billion old Leones was paid back to SLRSA welfare account where the monies were withdrawn from.
At this stage the prosecutor ASP Wellington requested an adjournment for the witness to come with the original of the documents identify in court.
Defense lawyer Daniel J Lavalley renewed his application for bail on behalf of the accused persons noting that though the evidence in chief of pw1 has not been tested, but they have spent day behind bars.
Magistrate Ngegba refused bail and adjourned the matter to the 1st September 2023 for further hearing.