The prosecution’s key witness in the trial of former Finance and Development Planning Minister Samuel Tweah appeared consistently unable to produce direct evidence tying Tweah and co-defendants to the alleged misuse of $6 million, undercutting a central plank of the state’s case and exposing legal and evidentiary gaps, court proceedings showed Thursday.
Baba M. Borkai, an investigator with the Liberian Anticorruption Commission (LACC) and the prosecution’s principal witness, repeatedly declined to identify documents or accounts showing that the funds were diverted for private gain, saying instead that the money was “a proceed of crime” because, in his view, “Mr. Tweah did not have authority” to authorize the withdrawal.
Under vigorous cross-examination by defence counsel Cllr. Arthur Johnson, Borkai invoked investigative conclusions rather than offering forensic or transactional proof.
When pressed to name the alleged second account to which, by his own earlier definition, laundered funds would have moved, Borkai initially refused, prompting sustained objections from both sides and a judge’s order forcing him to answer.
The defense highlighted testimony from a subpoenaed Central Bank of Liberia (CBL) official, Grant Jlopleh, Director of Banking, who said the withdrawal “met the required mandate” for the CBL to release government funds.
Johnson asked jurors to weigh that statement against Borkai’s assertions; a prosecution objection to the line of questioning was overruled.
Borkai’s testimony also showed a contentious reading of national security and public financial management law.
He told the court the $6 million was not budgeted or appropriated and therefore beyond the minister’s authority.
Defense lawyers countered by reading provisions of the Public Financial Management (PFM) law and the Financial Intelligence Act that they say authorize the minister to support national security agencies from budget and nonbudget resources and to report extraordinary expenditures to the legislature.
On repeated occasions the prosecution objected when the defence sought to press Borkai on those statutory texts; judges allowed some questions and sustained others.
The witness’s admission that “the investigation was not interested in the operational details of $6 million” — and that the probe focused on an alleged act of corruption because the defendants could not identify which national security institutions received how much — drew sharp criticism from legal analysts and the defence.
“If the investigation was not interested in the operational details, how did they reach the conclusion the money was stolen?” Johnson asked in court. The question, defence lawyers say, will be central when cross-examination resumes.
A further point of contention involved the Financial Intelligence Agency (FIA) and its role in national security architecture. Borkai said he treated a July 2023 letter from former National Security Adviser Jefferson Kanmoh, which conferred a communications code (800), as evidence of FIA’s admission into the national joint security community.
The defence argued this misreads the National Security Act of 2011 and the FIA’s institutional history, noting the unit was the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) from 2012 and has participated in joint security structures since then.
Prosecution counsel Cllr. Richard Scott defended moves to limit some lines of questioning, accusing the defence of “invading the province of the jury.” Defence lawyers and outside analysts described those objections as indicative of a fragile case, saying repeated attempts to block answers underscore the prosecution’s reliance on inference rather than concrete transactional proof.
Court adjourned for recess at 1 p.m.; the defence’s cross-examination is expected to resume Friday. The line of questioning and the court’s rulings on admissibility of evidence and statutory interpretation are likely to shape whether the prosecution can bridge the gap between alleged procedural irregularities and proof of theft or money laundering as required under Liberian law.
