Witness says: ‘Accused introduced himself as Winners Chapel pastor’
September 4, 2015 By Hassan Gbassay Koroma
Second prosecution witness in a sexual penetration matter of a seven year-old girl, Mohamed Kabba, yesterday told Magistrate Albert J. Moody that the accused introduced himself as ‘Evangelist Samuel Fofanah, a pastor at the Winners’ Chapel Church.
The accused was arraigned on one count of sexual penetration of a girl contrary to the laws of Sierra Leone, with prosecutor Assistant Superintendent of Police Tommy B. Zizer alleging that the accused penetrated the toddler on 21 July in Freetown.
The witness identified the accused and stated that he knew the victim, and that on the day of the incident he had gone to bed by 11pm after taking some medication because he was feeling sick. He said his wife woke him after some hours to inform him that she had seen an older man having sexual intercourse with a small girl behind their house.
The witness said he went outside together with his wife, who pointed to him the scene and that he saw the victim on the lap of the accused, who had his trousers down to his knee as he was penetrating the victim.
He said he watched until the accused finished committing the act and dressed up, before he accosted him. “When I asked for his identity he told me his name and further told me that he is a pastor at Winners’ Chapel Church and begged me not to expose him as he did not commit the act by himself but it is a curse which is placed on him,” the witness said.
He said he called the victim’s aunt on phone and informed him about what had happened, and also asked the accused to give him contact number of his relative, which he obliged to.
He said he arrested the accused and took him and the victim to the Criminal Investigation Department, where detectives interrogated him (the witness).