By Richmond B. Tholley
Three men suspected of having murdered a 42-year-old man in the Simiria Chiefdom headquarters town of Mabonto, in the Northern District of Tonkolili, have been arrested and detained in a police cell in Magburaka town.
The three suspects, Alie Kanu, Pa Sorie Kamara, and Abdul Jalloh, reportedly murdered Hassan Jalloh on January 31, 2024, in Mabonto town after an altercation ensued between the men in custody now and the deceased.
According to Tejan Jalloh, an eyewitness, on January 30th, 2024, the three men accused the late Hassan Jalloh of stealing a touch light belonging to the mother of Abdul Jalloh, one of the suspects, an allegation the eyewitness says the deceased denied.
In the morning hours of the alleged incident, Tejan Jalloh said the deceased was passing around the residence of the suspects when another brawl in connection to the said touch light began, and this time, the witness said it resulted in a fight between the detained suspects and the now deceased.
It was during this fight that the late Hassan Jalloh, eyewitnesses, reported that he had been stabbed with a knife and chopped with a cutlass on the head.
“We saw blood oozing from his [late Hassan Jalloh] head and other parts of his body,” multiple eyewitnesses reported.
The 42-year-old man, sources said, was rushed to the Mabonto Police Post and made an official report by a cross-section of the family.
Giving an account of the incident, the Commander of the Police Post in the town of Mabonto, where the alleged incident reportedly happened, Assistant Superintendent of Police Daniel Ben Vandi, said they issued a police medical report form to the deceased immediately after he was taken to the Post.
Looking at the situation at the time, the commander said he advised the family to rush the now deceased to the Magburaka Government Hospital for medication and the endorsement of the medical report form by the Chief Medical Officer in Magburaka.
Vandi rebutted an allegation by the family of the deceased that the police did not treat the matter with seriousness.
“Since we issued the medical report form, neither Hassan Jalloh, the deceased, nor his family had ever returned the endorsed medical paper, so that could have opened our investigation.
Instead, he was seen passing around the town,” ASP Vandi stated.
It was on February 8 that the deceased’s health situation deteriorated and the bleeding worsened. Jalloh reportedly died on the way to Magburaka at the time the family was taking him there for medication.
Though attempts were made to bury the matter under the carpet, the intervention of the media made that endeavor fruitless.
The police arrested Jalloh’s alleged killers immediately after the matter reached the public domain. On February 9, 2024, an autopsy was conducted on the deceased’s dead body, and a family source confirmed that the late man died as a result of internal bleeding caused by the assault on him by the three men.
“Yes, the result is out, and it was revealed that our brother did not die a natural death. He died of internal injuries as a result of the attack on him by the said suspects in custody,” the anonymous family source said.
But the Independent Observer Newspaper has not independently confirmed that statement.
The deceased was handed over to the family, and he was buried in his hometown of Mabonto immediately after the postmortem.
Meanwhile, statements have been obtained from the three suspects and some witnesses, according to a police source.
