Below is how Awoko is reporting it:
Hundreds of residents in Kenema city are caught in an election fever of allegations which has resulted in a truck being accused of carrying arms and ballot papers. This has resulted in people rushing to the Kenema Police Division along Hangha Road to verify the allegations arms importation, drugs and ballot papers to Kailahun district.
Two DAF trucks with registration numbers AGG 648 (blue) and AHB 641 (yellow) each loaded with over 20 big baskets said to contain dried fish. The two trucks were on Monday 12th November 2012 impounded by police and some supporters of the main opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) at the Rural Training Institute (RTI) along the Kenema Kailahun highway few miles from the city on suspicion that it was carrying the alleged items.
Civil Society organizations, the press, security forces and other stakeholders witnessed the inspection of the items in the truck. Police scanned the baskets on the trucks but found nothing like arms and ammunition. With regards ballot papers, the still agitated crowd was not convinced that there were nothing like ballot papers in the truck because, they claim, that the scanner cannot detect such papers.
Residents who were outside the police fence began demanding that the police open the baskets and they then started pelting stones causing the Police to divert traffic from Combema and Kingsway Junction and then from the clock tower axis. Some of the troublemakers were arrested and detained during the confusion.
The owner of the two trucks, Mohamed Lamin disclosed that they were on their way to Foya in the Lofa county in Liberia with the baskets but will make a brief stop at Koindu in Kailahun district.
The two trucks have since been released and have returned to Freetown, while the content is still at the police station at the time of going to press. The Regional crime officer ASP James Kargbo told the press that nothing of such items as claimed to be onboard the trucks were found. He says those who made the suspicion did not surface again at the station to make statements.
Speaking to the mayoral candidate of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) Joseph S. Keifala, he expressed his dissatisfaction about the whole exercise saying he is not satisfied with the scanning process.
Source: Awoko
Picture: Saffa Moriba
