In August last year, when one of the insignificant opposition presidential aspirants, Alie Kabba of SLPP was in court for Bigamy and Perjury, I retracted an article which my court reporter brought to me when I later realized that the facts were not properly arranged. I did that even without being asked to do so, because I know this paper Awareness Times has a long reputation of retracting when we make errors like we did that time.
It appears that unsolicited retraction has gotten to the head of Alie Kabba to extent he has misbehaved against our accurate report on what transpired in another court case in which he has been named; this time allegation of one Gibril Jalloh defrauding a vehicle owner supposedly involving Alie Kabba’s office as conspirators.
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| Insignificant opposition presidential aspirants, Alie Kabba of SLPP |
Yesterday 28th June, 2017, to the dismay of my entire editorial board, I read that Alie Kabba granted interview to an online newspaper called “Sierra Leone Telegraph,” during which he lambast an article which I published with titled “SLPP Alie Kabba Mentioned in Alleged Case of Fraudulent Conversion as Accused person Remanded in Custody.”
Our Publisher, Mr Benjamin Davies, queried our court reporter but the reporter stood by his report.
As a result, we went to the Court Registry yesterday afternoon and searched the case records. The case number is: C/S 1675/17.
After going through the file, we realized that everything reported by Awareness Times reporter is 100% recorded by the Court Magistrate in even the handwriting of the Magistrate who was taking down notes as the complainant spoke.
Therefore, the Awareness Times Newspaper maintains that there is nothing to apologise over or to retract in our article. Alie Kabba is just making foolish statements to call a bluff. We maintain to our readers that our article is accurate. Finally, no need to cross check when reporting a straight forward development in a court room.
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Newspaper in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
