Josephine Kainesi testified before the court that she believed the accused was a legal practitioner, because everyone around the accused called him lawyer Kabba and when she was taking into the accused’s residence, she saw the accused’s picture in full legal attire and came to the conclusion that the accused was a lawyer.
She further went on to explain to the court that the accused facilitated all the necessary arrangements for all the documentation and the payments for the said land were made directly to the accused. She added that immediately after payments were made, the accused instructed the complainant to start the construction process immediately.
She however stated that due to the inconsistency in the different documents relating to names of the said clients, she immediately consulted a friend at the law officer’s department office to verify the validity of the documents in question.
Josephine told the court that she was informed that there were no documents registered with the office relating to the property in question and the accused in fact was not a lawyer.
Defence lawyer, Cheryl Blake however, admonished the court to tamper justice with mercy, noting that since the accused was incarcerated, he has been comporting himself both in court and in the remand centre and thus urged the court to take into consideration the time spent in detention when rendering the sentence.
“There was an intention to defraud, because he knew that the said property was never his own, I therefore convict him as guilty and to serve a prison term of two years commencing on the day that was incarcerated plus a restitution of thirty one million Leones (Le31,000,000),” she concluded.
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