MONROVIA – Former Finance Minister Samuel D. Tweah, Jr. has leveled an extraordinary and unverified accusation against Vice President Jeremiah Koung. In a Facebook post, Tweah claims Koung instructed Judge Ousmane Feika to overturn his jury acquittal over alleged “jury misconduct.” The allegation, which The Analyst could not independently verify, strikes at the constitutional separation between executive power and judicial independence. Its timing is deliberate, published on the very eve of Judge Feika’s expected ruling in the case. Tweah’s declaration that he will submit to no retrial escalates the matter from legal contest to political confrontation. Pundits say how the judiciary and the Executive Mansion respond will now shape public perceptions of judicial autonomy, as THE ANALYST reports.
Former Minister of Finance and Development Planning Samuel D. Tweah, Jr. has publicly accused Vice President Jeremiah Koung of directing a sitting judge to overturn the jury verdict that acquitted him.
The explosive claim, published on Tweah’s Facebook page under the banner of breaking news, has not been independently verified by The Analyst, and no evidence was provided to substantiate it.
The Core Allegation
According to the post, Vice President Koung “has instructed Judge Ousmane Feika to overturn a verdict of acquittal” on what Tweah dismissed as “a bogus and spurious allegation of jury misconduct.”
Tweah asserted that the judge “finds no evidence linking me or my lawyers to any misconduct, whatever that means.”
Claims of Internal Dissent
Tweah further alleged that the Government has been deadlocked for the past month over what he said many officials and some Justices of the Supreme Court consider an unprecedented overreach that would doom the judiciary.
He quoted unnamed voices as warning: “We cannot destroy the judiciary because of Samuel Tweah.”
Those voices, he claimed, argued that overturning a jury verdict would be dangerous, particularly after Abdullah Kamara’s recent unanimous verdict of acquittal. Such a move, they reportedly cautioned, would show the Government is “witch hunting and cherry picking in corruption cases.”
In response, Tweah alleged, the Vice President told the Justices and others concerned that “winning election is more important for their Government than protecting the rule of law.” He added that, according to what he called his intelligence, the final decision was handed to Judge Feika last Thursday after lengthy Government discussions and a national security assessment.
Defiance Ahead of Ruling
Tweah said the anticipated ruling has no bearing on his status, insisting that nine jurors have already declared him a free man based on the evidence presented to them.
He recalled weeping in court and again at a press conference, moved that “nine ordinary Liberians could withstand the pressures and promptings” of what he called “a monstrous and nefarious government.”
“Judge Feika has only one option and that is to issue my certificate of freedom tomorrow,” he wrote. “If he refuses, I will submit to no bogus political trial in violation of my constitutional rights. I am a free man. They wanted to make me a ‘criminal;’ they can now have me as a freedom fighter.”
Invoking Liberia’s Martyrs
Tweah argued that Liberia has ended autocracy, contending that such “diabolical antics” belonged to the 1980s and 1990s, when the political wishes and caprices of presidents became law. He invoked the deaths of Gabriel Kpolleh, Jackson F. Doe, Tunia Richardson, and Weewee Debbah, among hundreds of thousands of other martyrs, as sacrifices that inaugurated a rule-based social and political order.
“The law is bigger today than the whims of any President or Vice President,” he declared. He vowed that if Judge Feika or Chief Justice Gbeisay cannot stand up to what he termed manipulations and interferences from Vice President Koung and others, he is “potent enough” to do that bidding himself, declaring, “Bring it on!”
A Legal Storm Brewing
Tweah announced that he would engage the media following the ruling, closing his post with a series of exclamations denouncing what he called tyranny and judicial manipulation. He signed off describing himself as “the FEARLESS Grebo warrior.”
The Office of the Vice President, Judge Feika, and the Judiciary had not publicly responded to the allegations at press time. None of the claims contained in the post has been independently substantiated, and The Analyst will seek reactions from the officials named as the matter develops.