Sento Conteh, a woman who was jailed for indecent exposure during the August 10, 2022, protest in Makeni, has been released.
Conteh served the two-year sentence at the Female Correction Centre.
In September 2022, Magistrate Mark Ngagba of the Pademba Road Court No.1 sentenced Conteh to two years imprisonment after she was found guilty of exposing her body and dancing without clothes during the protest. The accused pleaded guilty to the offense.
State prosecutor Yusif Issac Sesay argued that Conteh’s actions were morally wrong and brought shame to womanhood. He said the accused on the said day of the riot, stripped herself naked in a video that went viral.
He said the video showed her genital and other private parts of the accused and added that the accused didn’t waste the courts time, but asked that the Magistrate should sentence the accused to serve a jail term of two years five months so that it will serve as a warning to others.
Sesay continues that the accused could be a mother, sister, or girlfriend that had brought shame to womanhood as what she did was not only legally wrong but morally wrong also.
Defense counsel G. Conteh pleaded for leniency, citing Conteh’s first-time offense and the circumstances leading to the indecent exposure. He noted that she had lost her husband and child.
Magistrate Ngeba sentenced Conteh to two years imprisonment, considering the maximum fine for such an offense and the severity of the crime.
I am sorry. I am sorry. I am a Sierra Leonean. I was at work on that day. I cried to see my own citizens killed their own citizens for APC or SLPP. Wrong. As the prosecutor said, morally Wrong, everything on that sinful day. May the almighty God whom I served, clean up our beloved country from bad actors.
Now, my dear sister, what do you gain from that of your actions? Is APC officials going to give you any monetary help so you can go on with your life. I pray that they sorry for you and help you. Husband and children, gone. It is very sad. Politics is a dirty game. You have to be in the balance side. Don’t be wrong or the hierarchies will drop you flat. I pray that my country men and women(Sierra Leoneans)will refrain from destroying their own citizens and their own nation. Amen.