The legal battle surrounding Liberia’s controversial US$6.2 million economic sabotage case has entered a dramatic new phase, with defense lawyers for former Acting Justice Minister Cllr. Nyenati Tuan and former National Security Advisor Jefferson S. Karmoh, filing a Motion for New Trial before Criminal Court “C”.
The motion comes just days after a divided jury delivered one of the most debated verdicts in recent Liberian judicial history, acquitting former Finance Minister Samuel D. Tweah, Jr. and former FIA Comptroller D. Moses P. Cooper on all charges while returning guilty verdicts and hung counts against several co-defendants.
Lawyers representing Cllr. Tuan and two others say convictions against him and Karmoh contradict the acquittals of Tweah and Cooper. The defendants were prosecuted by the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC) over allegations tied to the transfer and use of over US$6.2 million and L$1 billion reportedly allocated for national security operations during the final months of former President George Weah’s administration.
Charges in the indictment included economic sabotage, theft of property, money laundering, criminal facilitation, conspiracy, fraud on the internal revenue of Liberia, and misuse of public money.
But in a strongly worded post-verdict filing now before Judge Ousman F. Feika, defense lawyers argue that the jury’s guilty verdicts against Tuan and Karmoh are legally defective, unsupported by evidence, and inconsistent with the acquittals handed down to the prosecution’s alleged “principal actors.”
At the center of the motion is the defense’s argument that prosecutors failed to present direct evidence proving that either Nyenati Tuan or Jefferson Karmoh personally stole, received, concealed, converted, or benefited from government funds.
The defense says the prosecution’s case depended largely on assumptions, interpretations of official communications, and circumstantial inferences rather than hard evidence linking the accused to criminal conduct.
One key issue highlighted in the filing concerns a September 5, 2023 communication authored by Cllr. Tuan, while serving as Acting Justice Minister and head of the Joint Security apparatus.
According to the motion, prosecutors used the letter as evidence of conspiracy and facilitation. However, defense lawyers insist the communication merely informed the Financial Intelligence Agency (FIA) that funding for Joint Security operations had been secured and that the FIA had been selected as the financial channel for disbursement.
Perhaps the most politically explosive portion of the motion is the defense’s claim that the acquittals of Samuel Tweah and Moses Cooper effectively collapsed the prosecution’s entire conspiracy narrative.
Defense lawyers argue that the government consistently portrayed Tweah as the “central figure” who allegedly authorized the controversial transfers, while Cooper was accused of physically withdrawing FIA cheques.According to the motion, the jury’s rejection of criminal liability against both men makes the convictions against Tuan and Karmoh irrational and contradictory.
“If the jury acquitted Cooper, the alleged payee and physical withdrawer of the funds, the same jury could not rationally convict Tuan of theft absent separate evidence,” the filing contends. The motion also maintains that conspiracy charges cannot survive once jurors reject the alleged underlying criminal scheme involving Tweah.
