After Staff Member was Arrested in Alleged Bribery Plot to Free Drug Suspect
Monrovia, Liberia – A staff member working for Vice President Jeremiah Kpan Koung was detained this week for allegedly attempting to pay Liberia Drug Enforcement Agency (LDEA) personnel to allegedly release a drug suspect who was incarcerated. This was a significant shift in Liberia’s intensified war on drugs.
The Vice President’s office oversees the Group of 77, a group of people with disabilities. Clifford Payne, the Deputy Public Relations Director of this organization, was allegedly caught on camera attempting to offer money to LDEA officers in order to secure the release of a drug suspect who had previously been arrested with 1,511 Kush rocks, which have a street value of L$226,650.
The defendant was processed right away and sent to court early on Monday morning, according to LDEA authorities. Payne allegedly followed the officers and tried to negotiate the suspect’s release after they started escorting him through the legal process.
Following the purportedly unsuccessful bribery attempt, Payne was immediately apprehended and taken in a national security pickup. He didn’t reveal his attachment to the Office of the Vice President until after his detention and identity check.
Patrick Kormazu, LDEA Deputy Officer-in-Charge for Operations, informed the media that Payne called on the suspect’s release on several occasions. He was arrested and brought to the LDEA Headquarters for interrogation after he insisted that the suspect be set free, according to Kormazu.
Payne is being held at the LDEA Headquarters, he said, and has been told to send for his attorney before making a statement. After that, he will be turned over to the Liberia National Police for obstructing law enforcement. Kormazu emphasized, The act of hindering the process, after attempting to bribe the officer for the suspect’s release, will be paid for through the LNP. Payne is still under the custody of the LDEA, awaiting his statement.
Payne’s actions, according to observers, would confirm long-standing complaints by LDEA personnel about intervention “from the top,” which they claim compromises their capacity to successfully fight the war on drugs.
Drug-enforcement officials have long expressed fears that the government’s anti-narcotics campaign is being undermined by politically connected individuals who routinely exert pressure to halt investigations or win the release of suspects. These concerns have been heightened by the arrest.
Officers have been complaining about pressure from those in positions of authority. They want cases to be stopped and suspects to be freed. On condition of anonymity, an LDEA officer told FrontPageAfrica, “And when we resist, we become targets.”
Vice President Koung distanced himself from the arrested employee and vowed that neither his office nor his family would protect wrongdoers in a sharply worded statement released on Tuesday in reaction to the viral video and mounting public condemnation.
“My attention has been drawn to a video circulating on the internet involving a staff of the Group of 77 and officers of the Liberia Drug Enforcement Agency (LDEA). Let me state this with absolute clarity and without contradiction: Anyone, and I mean anyone, connected to me by whatsoever means, whether by blood, by marriage, by employment, or by friendship, who engages in drug-related activities will face the full weight of the law,” the Vice President said.
Credit: Willie N. Tokpah
