Gov’t rebuttal witness cites procedural breach

State rebuttal witness in the U.S. stolen vehicles case Mr. Alexwyne Farkolie says procedure was breached when Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA) Senior Collector Mrs. Cecelia McGill instructed him and assessor Kandakai Sherman to reassess a new model to a document that had been assessed, completed and signed.

“… But in this case, the document was approved and signed by me that needed to go for physical examination. The procedure there was [breached] by instructing us because of her [intelligence] to do additional assessment”, Farkolie testified on Thursday, 3 August at Court ‘C” in Monrovia.

Witness Farkolie’s appearance aimed to rebut Mrs. McGill’s testimony provided on 17 July in the case in which she told the court that there was no time she gave a verbal instruction to the Chief Assessor or the subordinate in the absence of standard operation procedure and the administrative regulation.

“Every instruction given to my subordinate had been written,” Mrs. McGill testified in July. But witness Farkolie maintains that he accepted verbal instruction from Mrs. McGill, being that she headed the CBO, and had claimed to have gotten an intelligence that the model of the car had changed and additional revenues were needed to be collected.

Defendants Armstrong Tony Campbell and Sheak K. Brown are bracing for final argument between State and Defense Lawyers scheduled for Thursday this week, 10 August in the economic sabotage trial for allegedly smuggling seven stolen U.S. vehicles to Liberia and understating their values to underpay taxes.

Prosecutors originally indicted four persons in connection with the case at bar including U.S. – based Sheriff Lasuado, but they have dropped all charges against Sherman Kandakai and used him as State rebuttal witness against co-indictees Brown and Campbell.

Witness Kandakai claims that Mrs. McGill instructed him on 8 August 2016 “to reassess seven used vehicles in favor of consignee Sheak K. Brown Building Materials.” Upon receiving the documents that had allegedly been assessed previously by Assessor Pandora Banes with attached internet copies, witness Kandakai says he told her that the work had already been done by another assessor.

But he adds that Assessor Banes explained how she received information that the years of the vehicles were not correct, and “that I should reassess.” Witness Kandakai adds that when he confronted his supervisor Farkolie about the instruction given him by Mrs. McGill, Farkolie subsequently led him to Mcgill’s office to verify what she said.

“… [When] we got to Mrs. McGill’s office, Farkolie asked her about the assessment and she consented and said that we should go back into the office and that we should do the work,” Kandakai concludes.

By Winston W. Parley