“Forensic Audit Team Will Provide Credibility, Prove Our Innocence” -Cummings, says judiciary has been undermined

The Political leader and Standard bearer of the Alternative National Congress, Mr. Alexander Cummings has said he took the decision to hire a foreign forensic team to investigate the allegation of forgery levied against him because he wanted to ensure that credibility is brought in the investigation, to prove his innocence as well as helping the judicial system to make the right decision because the judiciary is being put in a very difficult situation by the executive branch of government.

Speaking to a live phone in program on the Sky Communications 50-50 Talk show yesterday,  Monday, May 9, 2022, Mr. Cummings stressed the importance of the forensic investigation by the  team and called on Liberians to embrace the initiative as it will unravel the truth in the case which he termed as a “persecution” and not prosecution.

“Liberians should care for it, it is about justice and finding the truth, the Liberian people want to know the truth and this is another way to ascertain what the truth is and I am sure they will lay the way, everybody can read, everybody can follow, the chronology of events, the documents, will be presented, I think it be a powerful outcome and the truth will be revealed. We have the facts and the public will know”, Mr. Cummings said.

Mr. Cummings said the team led by former first lady of the United Kingdom, Mrs. Cherie Blair was recommended by his business partners from Ghana, parts of Africa and the world after advising about the damage the case could cause to his integrity and reputation and for the fact that he needed to rely on an independent source to handle the case besides the judicial process that is being manipulated by the executive branch.  He said there was a meeting held with the group and Mrs. Blair assured them that her reputation will not be compromised in their work.

Asked why hire the team when the case is already being handled in the court and whether it is not being seen as not having confidence in the judiciary, Mr. Cummings said he has always had respect for the courts and that is why he has been honoring every sittings of the court and obeying whatever the courts say as a man who believes in the rule of law but it has been the government through the executive branch that has shown disrespect to the judicial system, forcing it in situations that have embarrassed and tend to comprise it.

“Before that happened, the action of the executive branch of government has put our judiciary under bad reputation, so this is not something that I have done to undermine the judiciary. The government is the one putting the judiciary’s integrity in question. I have been going to court, obeying court orders, so you can’t say I am undermining the court.

“The government, including President Weah, Minister McGill, Minister Dean, Solicitor Syrenius Cephus in collusion with Former Vice President Boakai, Benoni Urey, and others have been trying hard to find a case against me, using all means to compromise the judicial process. All because they want to get me out of the race and the Liberian people and justice will prevail. They cannot succeed”, he said

Mr. Cummings further buttressed his point of how the government has been undermining the judicial system when he made reference a statement attributed to the Minister of Justice Frank Musah Dean that the Ministry of Justice was running two parallel institutions, one headed by him and another by the Solicitor General Cephas and also a text message sent to the Spoon TV Talk Show host, Stanton Witherspoon that it was the Minister of Justice who has been behind his travails with justice.

“In fact, the Solicitor General said a text and was read on the show that it was Minister Dean who wanted the case revisited when there was no evidence against him only to ask the SG a few days to present to him evidence against us. So you see the contradictions and how the justice ministry has been making mockery out of the courts. It is important to make a distinction between the two here. We respect the courts but the Justice Ministry has put them in a difficult situation”, he said

The businessman turned politician then frowned on what he called the level of hypocrisy from some people regarding his decision to bring in an international investigative team when the case is ongoing in court.

“And there is this hypocrisy that I want to point out about our decision to bring in the forensic team. You know Liberians have always looked to the international community when something happens in this country. You remember the $16 bn issue. People were calling for an international  forensic team to be brought in to investigate and we saw how Kroll investigated the issue. Even recently when the Unity Party was protesting about their candidate in the Lofa County by-election, they marched to the American Embassy, the United Nations Office. So when we are bringing this team, some people begin to say different thing against it”, Mr. Cummings said.

When asked how the case of forgery against him came about, the ANC number one partisan said that everything was going on fine within the Collaborating Political Parties(CPP) until it was time for them to go to the convention to elect the standard bearer of the CPP when all the confusion and the allegation against him started.

He said after the first framework document came out and was greeted with backlash from the public with a clause that said only partisans of the CPP will be given jobs if it came to power, the political leaders decided to fine tune the documents, and with the suggestion of VP Boakai, some lawyers were given the task to work on the documents and they made their inputs and returned the same to the political leaders

“The lawyers made their input and returned the documents over to us. We looked at them and agreed to everything that was submitted finally at the National Elections Commission for the registration of the CPP. Everything was recorded and that was why it was a surprise that the prosecution deleted some of the recordings and evidence and said they were done “inadvertently”. These were some of the facts they wanted to hide but they did not succeed. So we will see and the Liberian people will know the truth”, he said.

Responding to a question about what will happen if after all the time spent in court, he is not found guilty, Mr. Cummings was not definite about what he will do but stated that there will be some consequences.

“Definitely there will definitely be consequences but I will not tell you what they will be. I was not the only one that was accused. Senator Naathen and Cllr. Toe were also accused. We will have to sit down to decide what action should be taken”, he said.