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Ecobank Liberia’s US$700,000 trial at the Civil Law Court annex ‘B’ has been indefinitely postponed, Judge Scheaplor Dunbar decided on Monday.
The bank, co-defendant, previously had been scheduled to go to trial on Monday, December 23, in the libel case brought by Wilmot Smith, former Deputy Director for information and Coordination at the Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo Information Services (LISGIS), but the prosecution and defense had both acknowledged that date would need to be delayed.
Judge Dunbar said on Monday the trial would no longer begin December 23 but did not set a new date.
Smith is seeking US$500,000 as general damages and US$200,000 in punitive damages, on the basis that an employee of the bank, Yussif S. Kromah (co-defendant), who released an alleged misinformation implicating the plaintiff to the illegal withdrawal of monies from the Population Census fund intended to pay enumerators.
It can be recalled that the defendant bank submitted its key documentary evidence, the Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo Information Services (LISGIS) statement of leaked investigation.
At the heart of the investigation, Yussif S. Kromah, the bank Reconciliation Officer assigned to the Card Operation Department, accused of leaking information of LIGIS’s account details to Mr. Alex Williams, Deputy Director for Statistics, at LISGIS, who is not authorized by LIGIS, and a non-signatory to the account.
The document alleges that Williams manipulated the account details for his personal and selfish aims, except for the bank-client privilege. They argued, for instance, that Williams shared the account statement with the Spoon TV social media platform, one of the widely listened to talk show programs, outside of the country.
The investigation said, Williams and Spoon TV used this leaked information to incriminate the plaintiff, Wilmot Smith, former Deputy Director for information and Coordination at LIGIS, for illegally withdrawing US$1.7million from LIGIS’s account with the bank.
Williams was one of the participants on a Spoon TV show where LISGIS’s account details were discussed, the investigation said. “Williams being disgruntled and having access to such information, he was behind the Spoon discussion of the leaked account,” the investigation observed.
