**Updates IFEX alerts of 22 and 21 August 2000** (CPJ/IFEX) – The following is a 23 August 2000 CPJ press release: LIBERIAN JUDGE DENIES BAIL TO JAILED CHANNEL FOUR TEAM Alleges “crime against me and the people of Liberia” New York, August 23, 2000 – A four-man television news team from Britain’s Channel Four television […]
**Updates IFEX alerts of 22 and 21 August 2000**
(CPJ/IFEX) – The following is a 23 August 2000 CPJ press release:
LIBERIAN JUDGE DENIES BAIL TO JAILED CHANNEL FOUR TEAM
Alleges “crime against me and the people of Liberia”
New York, August 23, 2000 – A four-man television news team from Britain’s Channel Four television network, in Liberian police custody since last Friday, was denied bail one day after their indictment on charges of espionage. [Read the indictment at www.cpj.org]
Judge Timothy Swope, who is hearing the case in Monrovia Criminal Court, said he had decided against granting bail for the four foreign reporters on the grounds that “espionage is a first degree felony. The court is reluctant to grant bail [in] such a case.”
The judge added that the four foreign reporters had committed a crime “against me and the people of Liberia,” according to CPJ sources in the courtroom.
At the end of the hearing, defense lawyer Varneh Sherman said he would appeal the judge’s decision to the Supreme Court. In an interview with the BBC, Sherman also claimed that some of his clients had been “tortured, humiliated and abused” on August 22, when they were taken to the National Security Agency for questioning. “[The agents] put cockroaches into their cells; they even threatened that they would cut them up,” the lawyer said, describing such threats as “mental torture.”
The Channel 4 team—award-winning Sierra Leonean journalist Sorious Samura; British director David Barrie; British cameraman Tim Lambon, and South African cameraman Gugu Radebe— arrived in Liberia in early August to film a documentary about the country. They were arrested Friday, August 18, and indicted on espionage charges yesterday, August 22. There were no defense lawyers present in the courtroom when the indictment was delivered, CPJ sources said.
A copy of the indictment obtained by CPJ charges that the four journalists “filmed various scenes and criminally matched them to the various counts of the already distributed script to show that the Government of Liberia is indeed involved in the civil conflict in Sierra Leone,” where Liberian president Charles Taylor is widely suspected of supplying rebel forces with weapons and logistical support in exchange for diamonds. (Liberian authorities reject this charge.)
The journalists also face charges of portraying President Taylor, a former Liberian warlord with a long record of alleged atrocities, as a “murderer to the viewers and the international community” by filming the head of state “on separate occasions and [linking] such film to events of war in other areas.” [sic]
Describing Liberia as “in a state of war,” the indictment also states that “information of public defense has been collected by the defendants and given to foreign citizens to be used against the Republic of Liberia.”
The indictment emphasizes that “the most serious offense under Espionage Act [sic], and the one punishable by death, is a violation [of the law] which proscribes communicating, delivering, or transmitting to any foreign government (…) or citizen thereof, any information relating to national defense, or attempting to do so.”
Since their arrest, Liberian authorities have claimed that the four journalists entered the country with “criminal designs,” seeking to substantiate U.S. and British allegations that President Taylor was receiving so-called “blood diamonds” from Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels in exchange for weapons.
Speaking to the BBC on August 20, Liberian information minister Milton Teahjay said that “instructions from the State Department and perhaps what appears to be the British Foreign Office” were found among the journalists’ documents. “That is typical espionage,” the minister said.
On August 7, the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism granted the journalists written permission to conduct interviews, take photographs, and make video recordings. According to CPJ’s sources, the permit was signed by Jeff Mutada, assistant minister for public affairs.
Even so, police apparently entered the hotel rooms of the journalists on Friday, August 18, seizing all their equipment and videotapes. At around 11:30 p.m. on Friday, all four were arrested in their hotel while they were meeting with the Sierra Leonean ambassador to Liberia.
The following day, Saturday, August 19, Justice Minister Eddington Varmah held a press conference, during which he described the videotapes as “damaging” to the government of Liberia and to the security of the state, and charged that they were “designed to present false and malicious information to foreign powers.”
