Prosecution witness No1. Ibrahim Mansaray, a printer has on Tuesday 30th May 2023, narrated his experience in court before Magistrate Mark Ngegba of Pademba Road Court No1 as to what he knows about the alleged murder of Mr Edward Ola Johnson.
The accused is charged with one count of murder contrary to law.
According to police, the accused Mohamed Haroun Conteh, on Saturday 11 March 2023 at No5 Victoria Street in Freetown allegedly murdered Mr Edward Ola Johnson.
The witness led in evidence by State Counsel Umuh Sumaray said he knew the deceased Ola Johnson as his neighbor.
He recognized the accused Mohammed Haroun Conteh as the late teacher’s private student.
Earlier in the morning hours of the 11th March, he said he met Johnson at the restroom after which he left for his shop. It was after 1:00pm, he said the accused came to Mr. Johnson’ s house putting on a white attire. He said he came to his shop requesting he wanted to urinate. The boy, he informed the court went into Mr. Johnson’s apartment.
Later that day, the witness said it was alarmed by other neighbors that the teacher had died. Immediately after that he said he left his shop and rushed to the scene, where he met Mr. Johnson already dead with his throat slit, two red and two blue inked pens shoved in his throat.
He said the police later came to the crime scene to investigate.
He told defense lawyer Emmanuel Teddy Koroma during cross examination that he has been a neighbour with the deceased in the same compound for about 2 years.
He said there is a distance between his shop and the residence of the deceased.
He also said he has been seeing the boy around and at the same couple times before 11th March 2023.
That day, the witness said he told the police that it was only Mohamed Arun Conteh that came to Mr. Johnson.
He told the court that the day of the accident was the first time that he requested for the use of his birth room.
He said the accused is the only private pupil of the late man at his house.
The witness also revealed during cross examination that at the time he arrived at the scene after the alarm was raised the wound was still fresh.
He said that the busy nature of his job does not prevent him from noticing other things around the area such as visitors and what happened in the premises.
He said the door leading to his shop is different from the one leading to their premises.
When he was asked how many times in a day did he see the deceased, he said more than twice.
He said it was around 7-8am he and Mr. Johnson used the restroom and entered into his apartment watching game.
When asked by lawyer Teddy, how he came to know that the late man was watching game, the witness said the TV set was on the volume was loud enough to tell.
The witness said Mr. Johnson who is older than him, has had a particularly good relationship with everyone in the said compound where they resided.
The alarm of Mr. Johnson’s death he said was raised after 3:00pm.
When he was question as to whether he saw who exactly occasioned the murder of Mr. Johnson, the witness said no. At this juncture, the matter was adjourned to Friday 2nd June 2023 whiles the accused was remanded in prison.
