29. The defendant's contention is that
though the
Minister of Justice and
Attorney-General wrote to the Executive Governor of the Central Bank of Liberia
to
release
plaintiff's
funds
to
him, that
letter
was
predicated
on
misrepresentations made to the Minister by one of the counsels to the plaintiff.
Defendant continued that the said letter was withdrawn the very next day when
the Minister realised that
Governor
the facts upon which
he wrote to the Executive
were misrepresentations and therefore clearly indicated that
further
investigations into the issue were being carried out.
30. A careful analysis and evaluation of the investigative reports is essential to the
core issue before the Court in this case. The basis of plaintiff's application is that
he is entitled to recover his money that
is unlawfully being withheld by the
defendant as he has committed no crime which entitles defendant to withhold his
money whilst the defendant's defence is primarily that she is entitled to keep
same as plaintiff committed crimes against her. This is the case before the Court;
everything else is ancillary to this issue.
l
'
31. The record of . proceedings before
this
Court
clearly
indicates that
the
plaintiff's money was withheld and kept at the defendant's Central Bank after it
was directed to do so by a confiscation order of His Lordship Judge Kaba of the
First Judicial Circuit, Criminal Assizes 'C' Monteserrado County. A careful scrutiny
of the entire proceedings that led to the confiscation of plaintiff's
essential as that provides
money is
the basis upon which plaintiff was divested of his
money and same kept in the custody of the defendant. Annexure 'A' of the
plaintiff's pleadings and Exhibit R-5 of the defendant's pleadings is the record of
proceedings before the court which made the confiscation order. The contents in
both documents are the same. From these documents, the plaintiff was charged
with
money
laundering. Thus, the confiscation order
investigation into the alleged money
was made
pending the
laundering activities carried out by the
plaintiff as clearly shown in the record of proceedings before the court. Thus, the
court granted the confiscation order to enable
defendant withhold plaintiff's
money whilst she investigated money laundering charges preferred against the
plaintiff.
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