Dennise Nimpson
Africa-Press – Liberia. In 2019 Jerry Zeah left his home in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County, with hopes of greener pastures here in the nation’s capital. But his dreams were dashed soon after he arrived when Zeah’s employer accused him of robbing a liquor store on Old Road and conspiring with others to steal $LD1.5 million. Police charged and arrested Zeah. Because he couldn’t pay a bond he was sent to Monrovia Central Prison, commonly known as “South Beach”.
Four years later Zeah is still here. FPA/NN met Zeah during a recent to the prison granted on the condition that we not make recordings of any kind. The crime for which he has been charged carries a five-year sentence. In a year Zeah will exceed that time in jail despite never having been tried. The 27-year-old says he has lost part of his young life in misery, confined to a cell, for a crime for which he has never been found guilty. Zeah says he is innocent but sees no sign of justice being done any time soon.
“They did not give me time to go to court,” says Zeah. “If I had gone to court, my fate would have been decided, but right now, I don’t know where I am.”
Zeah is one of 2167 people across Liberia whose lives have been upended by being been jailed without a trial, according to the World Pre-trial/Remain Imprisonment, a global group monitoring prison numbers. Just 862 of Liberia’s prisoners have actually been convicted of a crime. Nearly 70 per cent of Liberia’s detainees have never been tried. That number reaches 80 per cent here in South Beach prison. Liberia is amongst countries with a high rate of pretrial detainees, the body said.
FPA/NN was given rare press access to the jail. Wearing an outfit that looked and smelled like it had been worn for many months, Zeah looked dejected, hopeless, and like a man who had lost everything. Thin and looking more like a man in his 50s than his 20s, he claimed that the food in the prison is tasteless and unhealthy.
“For you to eat it has to be 6 pm, the food we are eating here you can’t give it to your dog,” says Zeah.
The overcrowding of South Beach Jail has been well documented. The latest US Department of State County Report on Human Rights in Liberia called conditions “harsh” and blamed that in part on “gross overcrowding” in a prison holding 1426 inmates in a facility built for 374. It was evident in NN/FPA’s visit. Eight men – all pretrial detainees – shared a small cell. Convicted felons are housed on the same floor as pretrial detainees, though not the same cells. They had to take turns sleeping and had no access to running water. Inmates could be seen hanging on the windows of their cells, with looks of disappointment and rejection, begging for handouts from visitors. They received one meal a day.
A General Audit Commission report on the prisons in 2021 echoed the State Department findings. It also said there was inadequate pest control and prisoners with communicable diseases were often kept with healthy prisoners. Nearly 600 children were among the detainees. Prolonged detentions violate Liberia’s Constitution and international laws, which call for a speedy and impartial trial of an accused. According to the U.S. 2022 Human Rights Report, Zeah is one of many who have waited in detention for lengths of time approaching or exceeding the sentence they would receive if convicted.
The report attributed the problem to a range of issues including the use of detention as a punitive measure, failure to issue indictments in a timely manner, the lack of a functioning bail system, poor court recordkeeping, the failure of judges to assign court dates, ineffective assistance of defense counsel, and a lack of resources for public defenders.
“The defendants should have their hearing as soon as possible,” says Cllr. Finley Karnga, a criminal defense lawyer who has represented many people detained for long periods. “Pretrial detention is an unwarranted penalty, especially when your crime is bailable.”
Zeah’s crime is bailable, but he claims he has no money to pay and can’t afford a lawyer. He has never been given a court date. Zeah also claims he spent one week in a local police cell in Paynesville before being charged, an action that also violates his constitutional right to be charged and forwarded to court within 48 hours of his arrest.
“My life is shattered,” says Zeah. “I feel bad being here because I did not do what I am accused of. They brought me here, no one to run after the court because of the lack of money.”
There are ways to ensure the release of pre-trial detainees – such as filing a petition – according to Karnga but most detainees and their families are given no information about this, and others may be too poor to pay fees.
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