By Kruah Thompson
Liberian National Police (LNP) deputy inspector for crime service Col. Prince B. Mulbah, warns political parties in the country to desist from politicizing Police criminal investigations.
According to him, statistics show that even in the United States of America, as well sophisticated as they are, there are over thousands of unsolved criminal cases.
In a statement released Thursday, March 31, 2022, at MICAT’s regular press briefing on Capitol Hill, deputy inspector general Mulbah continued that if the entire Weah-led government is changed today and “angels are imported from heaven” to protect the country’s internal security, it will still not change anything.
He underscores the need for community residents to work with the police in combatting crimes.
” Assuming that you changed the Weah Government today and import angels from Heaven to serve your internal national security issues as police officers, people will still stress unsolved cases in the country. “Yes! this is the police that you have built over the past years. Learn to trust them.” DPI Mulbah notes.
His comments are in response to widespread public condemnation that greeted Police spokesman Moses Carter’s initial report of no foul play in the mysterious death of 25-year-old Prince Cooper on March 24, 2022, inside the premises of the Fawaz Construction Materials Store at ELWA Junction in Paynesville, outside Monrovia.
But the deputy inspector for crime service argues that criminal investigations are in stages:
“When someone is found dead, the homicide division of the LNP will dispatch a team to assess the situation and that’s the beginning of our investigation; when that is done, the lifeless or unresponsive body of the victim will be transferred in an ambulance to a medical facility”, he explains.
For the second phase of the investigation, he says, a coroner team will come to conduct a coroner inquest on the victim, adding that corridor inquest is not controlled by the police but it’s straightly under the control of the Ministry of Justice.
“That is why when it’s being conducted, it comprises of people of civil society organizations, family representatives, medical practitioners, human rights actors to reach the number of at most 15 persons.”
Following the incident (the mysterious death of Princess Cooper) he notes that people said the late Princess Cooper was found in a pool of blood, asking “But where did the blood come from? Is it that her nick was slashed off, chapped in the middle of the face or hit with a blunt object or junk in her body? That is the concern.”
According to him, the coroner’s inquest proved to the Police that there was no opening on the body of the late Princess, besides her nose and mouth.
“The coroner’s inquest shows that on the inner ear and the face there was a script, so the amount of blood we saw did not come from any part of her body but her nose and mouth”, DPI Mulbah maintains.
Therefore, he argues that when the Police spokesman Moses Carter announced that the coroner’s inquest is yet to establish foul play, it does not in any way root out the possibility that foul play must have occurred.
But spokesman Carter had actually said there is no foul play.
“This is why in the presence of the investigation, they recommended to the Ministry of Justice to perform an autopsy to know what obtained within her body”, Mulbah says.
With a sense of humor, he says another thing that has been trending on social media and in local newspapers is the issue of the late Princess’ friend.
According to him, social media and some local newspapers published that the princess’ friend was arrested by the Police, she was while making her way to Ghana, clarifying “This is false and misleading.”
“Everyone who we have spoken with, as far as we are concerned, are not flight risk; they are not people, who quote and unquote have been proven to be perpetrators of crime, for which they must escape”, he says and adds
that these people are under LNP full custody and they are being given all dull courtesy until otherwise proven guilty.
An autopsy conducted by the State on remains of the late Prince Cooper was boycotted by family representatives based on suspicions about the pathologists involved. Editing by Jonathan Browne
