A Magistrate Court in Freetown presided over by Magistrate Hannah Bonnie of Court No. 2 Thursday 27th 2020 granted bail to the proprietor and publisher of the Awareness Times newspaper, Dr Sylvia Olayinka Blyden and a Fourah Bay College University of Sierra Leone student, Muckson Sesay though they were later taken back to the cells at central prison as bail condition put forward by the court were unmet but the matter was adjourned to the 3rd June this year.
Dr Blyden alone was given a Five Hundred Million Leones (Le 500,000,000) with two sureties that have property as four houses in the Western Urban jurisdiction with building permits attached to them.
The publisher was arrested and over detained in different cells at the Criminal Investigations Department for well over three weeks before she was later charged with ten counts charges for seditious libel, publication of false news, seditious libel and defamatory libel.
She also received charges of double seditious libels and defamatory libel, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, doing an act tending to pervert the course of justice, and doing an act tending to pervert the course of justice.
Muckson Sesay, was also charged with one count for taking a picture of Dr Blyden’s interview and published it on social media.
