Sierra Leone’s judiciary on Wednesday December 13 ordered the arrest of Samura Kamara, opposition leader and runner-up in last June’s presidential election, for a corruption case.
“The Court of Appeal has ordered the immediate arrest of a former presidential candidate of the All People’s Congress Party (APC), Dr. Samura M.W. Kamara,” for his alleged involvement in a transaction involving the sale of shares held by the Sierra Leone Government in a mining company in 2012, when Kamara was Finance minister under President Ernest Bai Koroma (2007–2018), it said in a statement.
Samura Kamara came in second in the June 2023 presidential election, won in the first round by Julius Maada Bio with 41.16% of the vote. He had rejected the results. The APC deemed the presidential, legislative, and local elections rigged and decided to boycott Parliament and local councils.
The government and the APC finally reached an agreement in October: the APC agreed to end its boycott in exchange for an end to politically-motivated detentions and court cases.
After his election for a first term in 2018, Mr. Bio launched a vigorous campaign against corruption, reputed to be endemic in this poor country, and the squandering of public assets. Several high-ranking officials of the Koroma administration were implicated. The APC, the former ruling party, cried “witch-hunt”.
Since December 2021, Samura Kamara has been on trial for allegedly embezzling more than $2.5 million in public funds in a project to renovate the Sierra Leonean consulate in New York when he was head of diplomacy.