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Justice Mark Ngegba has ruled that Yeabu Zainab Sheriff’s appeal against her four-year prison sentence will go ahead.
This afternoon, the High Court refused the government’s application to throw out the entire appeal on a technical point. The judge found that the Notice of Appeal did not fully comply with the old 1969 court rules, but he decided this was not serious enough to dismiss the case.
Instead, Justice Ngegba ordered Sheriff’s lawyers to re-file the appeal papers in the correct format. He also directed that the appeal will be heard on the written records from the original magistrate’s court trial, with no new witnesses called.
The full hearing on the merits of the appeal has now been fixed for Thursday 2 July 2026. Sheriff will not be required to attend court in person.
Zainab Sheriff, chairperson of the Wi Duti Movement, remains in custody at the Sierra Leone Female Correctional Centre in New England.
In his ruling, Justice Ngegba noted that the court is there to deliver justice and that people should be able to challenge decisions they believe are wrong. While the government’s objection was partly accepted, the judge chose not to strike out the appeal, allowing Sheriff’s 19 grounds of appeal to be considered properly.
The case will now move from procedural arguments to the substantive questions of whether her incitement conviction was correct and whether the four-year sentence was fair.
