Sierra Leone’s Minister of Information and Civic Education, Chernor Bah has made clarifications on the screenshotted CCTV image of one of the Coup plot suspects, Amadu Koita released by the Ministry after his arrest.

Koita was arrested in relation to the failed attempted coup on November 26th, days after he was declared suspect.

Following his arrest, the Ministry of Information and Civic Education released an image of Koita standing in front of the Pademba Road prison heavily armed. Claimed to be taken from a CCTV footage, the image had on it the date and time of the attempted coup.

Speaking in an interview with Radio Democracy 98.1, the Minister clarified the authenticity of the image, stating that it had been verified before it released.

To prove his point, he said the image had been checked thoroughly by them and that they had made sure it’s truthful and genuine before they put it out to the public.

The Minister went on to remind the people of his oath and promise made to the nation to never mislead the people, when he took up office. He said: “when they appointed me Minister of Information, I made a very solemn promise to the people of this country that I will not lie or mislead the people of this country.”

Giving additional explanation to the questions of the image, he said: “when we started our investigations, people were saying Koita was not in Sierra Leone. There were people that called saying Koita was in England. Then after he was arrested, they started saying he came to Sierra Leone to see his family. That was why we seek extraordinary permission from the top to bring out some of the surveillance image.”

He said the image was taken from video, adding that they have videos.