AYV News, October 23, 2024
The Sierra Leone Police has set the records straight on its 15th October, 2024 arrests made at the confines of the Headquarters of the main opposition, All People’s Congress (APC) Party in Freetown.
The Police in an official statement released yesterday, said they are dismay that the Secretary General of the APC addressed a letter to the Inspector General of Police captioned: Government’s Interference in the Continued Detention of APC Supporters.
The letter accused the Government of pressuring the Sierra Leone Police to prolong the detention of APC supporters in their custody and to subsequently prefer charges against them.
The Police said their deployment at and within the vicinity of the APC Party Headquarters on Tuesday 15 October, 2024, was predicated on a request received from the same Secretary General of the Party, complaining that supporters of Dr. Samura Kamara were planning to disrupt their meeting with a joint delegation of international guarantors comprising ECOWAS, the African Union, UNOWAS and the Commonwealth, at the Party Headquarters.
Whilst the Police were deployed at the aforesaid place, some group of people behaved themselves in a disorderly manner with clear riotous intent, thereby contravening the Public Order (Amendment) Act 2020. That prompted their arrest, detention and investigation.
The Police say the National Publicity Secretary of the APC was also on Radio Democracy 98.1 denouncing the behaviours of those arrested by the Police, further stating on air that those arrested by the Police were not APC Party supporters.
The SLP said the October 15 actions of the Police within the vicinity of APC Party Headquarters and the subsequent detentions and investigations of the arrested suspects are solely
initiated by the Police and not, in any way, dictated by the Government of Sierra Lecone.
The Force said the arrests, detentions and investigations of suspects are part of the powers of the Police in the exercise of their statutory functions of preserving law and order as well as preventing and detecting crimes.
They called on the public to further note that the SLP enjoys operational independence in the due execution of its functions, as provided for by law.
