By Audrey Raymonda John

John Kamara and Muctarr Balegu ASP Dahlia Wellington and ASP Ibrahim Mansaray are the prosecutors on this matter.

Prosecution witness No 2 Ibrahim Turay led in evidence by ASP Dahlia. PW2 said he is a banker and head of compliance at SLCB.

He said his duties are to develop policies and procedures and ensure compliance of policies and procedures.

He knows both accused as former colleagues.

And he recalled diverse dates between Thursday 1st December 2022 and 17th January 2023 in the court.

For the period under review, SLCB management mandates itself and team to SLRA.

He said wrongful withdrawals were made on that account and those were not made by the account holders or the signatory, adding that no instruction came from them as to the withdrawal.

The second accused debited that account to the tune of one Billion Leones, and he did so by debiting the account ten times that amounted to the tune of One Billion Leones.

He said the accused used wrong withdrawal slip to support his action and that the bank does not support such, adding that the savings withdrawal slips were prepared by him and which was wrong and he did so for all ten withdrawals and used the wrong narration by using a counter cheques code against the policy of the bank.

The witness said the second accused credited another account wrongfully and divided the One Billion into two and credited one Ishmeal Sillah’s saving account and that Ishmeal Sillah was a staff of the bank.

He added that from Waterloo branch, the first accused in their investigation received mail visa from another colleague’s email account instructing him to debit Ishmeal Sillah account with an amount of Nine Hundred million

Our investigation revealed that first accused and one of our volt controller Alice Makiue accepted the ‘Spiggie’ from Ishmeal Sillah’s account without going through the right procedures.

That Spiggie amounted to 900 million. He accepted the Spiggie without preparing any memorandum to the effect and with no management approval.

Having done so the first accused prepared a treasury voucher in and gave it to Alice to sign and endorsed which shows that they were in receipt of relevant cash.

He said the first accused ‘treasury out’ for the cashier and gave it to the cashier to sign and he endorsed it. The effect of the Treasury out means  they are removing cash for the teller on his/her request of 900 million. First accused also prepared withdrawal slip in place of customer.

The effect of their action was a big loss to the bank as the money was wrongfully removed from the customer’s account which the bank has to pay in loss.

In conclusion of his testimony, he said , he did a report signed by himself and the managing director and later  made statement to the police.

During cross examination, lawyer Lavalie, asked the witness if he knows for how long he has worked for the bank, the witness said he can’t tell.

The witness further said investigation reveals that the transaction was done on 28 December 2022.

He confronted the witness that Ishmeal Sillah was operating two accounts at the bank, one current and savings, and the witness said yes.

The witness said he was preview to the emails that was sent to the first accused by Ishmeal Sillah and can provide same to the court.

When the witness was asked as to whether the CCTV cameras were operational during the time the transaction occurred, the witness replied that they were not in operation during the transaction and after their investigation.

Bail continues and the case adjourned to the 17th September 2023.