Civil Society Activist Edmond Abu Jnr has been detained for “Contempt of Court” today, 10th January 2023.

The activist has been remanded for 21 days pending the hearing and determination of the Contempt Proceedings against him.

His detention for contempt came as High Court Judge, Adrian Fisher was delivering judgement on the case filed by the native consortium against the Telecommunications Operators including Natcom.

According to BBC Journalist, Umaru Fofana states in an interview that he is not sure about the circumstances leading to the Judge’s decision to remand him but he is aware that Abu made some appearances on Radio ahead of the judgement which may have offended the judge.

Contempt of court often referred to simply as “contempt”, is the crime of being disobedient to or disrespectful toward a court of law and its officers in the form of behaviour that opposes or defies the authority, justice, and dignity of the court. A similar attitude toward a legislative body is termed contempt of Parliament or contempt of Congress.

Meanwhile, the long-awaited Judgement against Africell, Orange and Natcom are now before High Court Judge Adrian Fisher who had taken over one and half years without judgement after closing the file for judgement but became long overdue despite several calls for ruling in the case.

The matter has taken half a decade in court changing the number of judges in the case until it finally landed before Fisher.

Justice fisher was very fast with the case but everything became snails paced after hearing from all the witnesses in the matter.

However, Native Consortium and Research Centre (NCRC) had threatened to hold a protest several times because the court was, according to the Consortium, slow with the case involving  Sierra Leone subscribers.