Tuesday, November 6, 2012

SLAJ is the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists... of which I am a proud "Associate Member". They've had their problems of late but essentially they're a good group and "trying hard" to remedy the many, many issues facing the media industry in Sierra Leone.

This is a press release from SLAJ.

SLAJ welcomes arrest of suspected killer of journalist

Freetown - The Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) welcomes news of the arrest by police on Saturday 3 November of Tunde Williams, the man suspected to have stabbed to death journalist Ibrahim Foday in June 2011.

The Director of the Criminal Investigations Department, Alfred Karrow-Kamara has confirmed the arrest saying Tunde is being brought to Freetown.

He says the circumstances surrounding his arrest in Kamakwei in northern Sierra Leone are yet unclear until a statement is obtained from him by tomorrow.

“We welcome this development, however long it has taken, and hope justice will be done as speedily as possible” says SLAJ President, Umaru Fofana, adding that the association is considering the option of hiring private lawyers to associate with the prosecution.

Fofana also expresses the hope that presidential bodyguards who beat up four journalists at the National Stadium last year, among other backlog of cases, will also face justice in the near future.

Foday, 38, was a reporter of the daily Exclusive newspaper in Freetown. He was stabbed on 12 June 2011 as he covered a dispute over a plot of land between the Grafton and Kossoh Town communities, in the outskirts of Freetown.

Police Constable Musa Samura, alias Bartez, of the Operational Support Division (OSD) was initially arrested as suspect in the killing of the journalist. Police however released him under dubious circumstances and without explanation which SLAJ condemned at the time. SLAJ wishes to renew its call for his prosecution.

PC Samura is believed to have aided the stabbing of the journalist by holding him as he tried to flee the melee.

Ibrahim is survived by his 16-year-old daughter and his 8-year-old son.

Signed

Moses Kargbo
Public Affairs Secretary

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