Monrovia, Liberia – The Supreme Court of Liberia has postponed the legal proceedings in the economic sabotage case against former Finance Minister Samuel D. Tweah and four other defendants on Tuesday, July 1, 2025. t is still unknown why this suspension has occurred. Legal professionals and the general public are in the dark about the trial’s delay.
The prosecution against Tweah, Nyanti Tuah, and others who are charged with a number of offenses, including abuse of office, criminal conspiracy, and misappropriation of public funds was abruptly stopped by the court. All of the accusations against the defendants have been refuted. The court has not yet released any more information, and no new date for the hearings has been established.
State prosecutors recently filed a move with the Supreme Court asking Sie-A-Nyeneh Yuoh, the departing Chief Justice, to step down from overseeing the case against Tweah and the other four defendants. According to the request, Chief Justice Yuoh is constitutionally unable to start any new legal actions because she attained the constitutional retirement age of 70 on June 26, 2025.
State attorneys requested a postponement of the hearing, which was set for July 1, 2025, at 11:00 a.m., arguing that Justice Yuoh’s ongoing involvement in the case would be constitutionally problematic. As stated in Article 72(b) of the 1986 Liberian Constitution, the prosecution’s petition cited the following: “The Chief Justice and Associate Justices of the Supreme Court and Judges of subordinate courts of record shall be retired at the age of seventy; provided, however, that a Justice or Judge may continue in office for the purpose of performing any judicial duties in relation to proceedings which were initiated before he or she attained that age.”
Since the lawsuit against Tweah was set to start after Justice Yuoh’s retirement date, the state attorneys argued, she is no longer lawfully permitted to rule over it. The prosecution is making this move as part of larger attempts to postpone the trial and get clarification on who should be in charge of it.
The Supreme Court has not yet issued a ruling on the motion. Economic sabotage is a well-known case whose hearing has been postponed. Tweah, former Acting Justice Minister/Solicitor General Nynati Tuan, former Financial Intelligence Agency Controller D. Moses P. Cooper, former Financial Intelligence Agency Director Stanley S. Ford, and former National Security Advisor Jefferson Karmoh were indicted by the August Term of Court on the following charges: Theft and/or unlawful disbursement and spending of public funds; theft of property, money laundering, criminal facilitation, and criminal conspiracy; and misuse of public funds, property, or records are examples of economic sabotage (fraud on the Internal Revenue of Liberia).
