Category Archives: Freetown

Ritual murder in Sierra Leone: ‘Murder for black magic’

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Unfortunately, murders for ritualistic purposes are not an exception in the West African country of Sierra Leone even though reported cases are relatively scarce. But, as in many other African countries, there might be a substantial gap between reported cases and the reality. Cases may go unreported for various reasons: protection of the perpetrator or the person who ordered the crime for ritualistic purposes, fear of reprisal, or simply because the victim of the crime was successfully hidden, e.g. in a dense forest area.

The article below is a living testimony that also in Sierra Leone the trade in human body parts makes innocent victims. The criminalization of what was once a traditional ceremony—albeit a deadly one—is not limited to Sierra Leone, unfortunately. The BBC investigation below exposes the grim reality of contemporary ritual killings for individual, personal gain: get-rich-quick schemes, increased social status, or for political purposes.

Warning: some readers may find the following articles disturbing because of their graphic contents.
(webmaster FVDK)

Hunting down those who kill people to sell their body parts for ‘magic charms’

Papayo’s mother Sally Kalokoh has not come to terms with her son’s death and wants his killers found

Published: November 24, 2025
By: BBC – Tyson Conteh, Sierra Leone

With many families left traumatised by killings apparently linked to supposed magic rituals in Sierra Leone, BBC Africa Eye looks into those behind the trade in human body parts.

Warning: This article contains details some readers may find disturbing.

The mother of an 11-year-old boy murdered as part of a suspected black magic killing four years ago is devastated that no-one has yet been brought to justice for his death.

“Today I’m in pain. They killed my child and now there is just silence,” Sallay Kalokoh told BBC Africa Eye, explaining how her son Papayo was found with parts of his body removed, including his vital organs, eyes and one arm.

He had gone out to sell fish at the market and never came back. 

His family searched for him for two weeks – and finally found his mutilated corpse at the bottom of a well.

“We always tell our children to be careful. If you are selling, don’t go to a corner or take gifts from strangers. It happens frequently in this country,” Ms Kalokoh said.

This murder in my hometown of Makeni, in central Sierra Leone, has haunted me as we often hear of reports of killings linked to black magic, also known as juju, that are never followed up or properly investigated by the authorities.

In Papayo’s case, the police did not even confirm that it was a “ritual killing” – when a person is murdered so that parts of their body can be used in so-called magic rituals by illicit juju practitioners.

They promise things like prosperity and power to clients who pay large sums in the false belief that human body parts can make such charms more potent.

But with the authorities severely under-resourced – there is only one pathologist in a country that has a population of 8.9 million – it is often impossible to gather the evidence needed to track down the culprits.

Belief in witchcraft is also so deeply ingrained in Sierra Leone, even among many police officers, that there is often a fear of pursuing cases further – and most go unsolved.

But I wanted to find out more about this underground trade in human body parts that leaves tragedy in its wake.

Our BBC Africa Eye team was able to find two people who claimed they were juju practitioners and offered to obtain body parts for ritual purposes.

Both said they were part of much larger networks – and one boasted that he had powerful clients across West Africa. The BBC was unable to verify these claims.

One member of our team went undercover, using the name Osman, to pose as a politician who wanted to achieve power through human sacrifice.

We first travelled to a remote area of Kambia district, in the north of the country near the Guinean border, to meet the juju man in his secret shrine – an area in dense bush where he consulted with his clients.

Calling himself Kanu, he wore a ceremonial red mask covering his whole face to conceal his identity and boasted of his political connections.

“I was working with some big, big politicians in Guinea, Senegal and Nigeria. We have our team. Sometimes during election time, at night, this place is full of people,” he claimed.

Election season is regarded by some as a particularly dangerous time when parents have been warned to take special care of their children because of the heightened risk of abductions.

On a second visit, Kanu became more confident and showed Osman what he said was evidence of his trade – a human skull.

“You see this? This belongs to someone. I dried it for them. It is a woman’s skull. I am expecting the person to pick this up today or tomorrow.”

He also pointed to a pit behind his shrine: “This is where we hang human parts. We slaughter here, and the blood goes down there… Even big chiefs, when they want power, come here. I give them what they want.”

When Osman specified that he wanted limbs from a woman to be used in a ritual, Kanu got down to business: “The price of a woman is 70m leones [£2,500; $3,000].”

Sierra Leone is one of the world’s poorest countries and is recovering from the legacy of a brutal 11-year civil war

Anxious not to put anyone at risk, we did not meet Kanu again. He may have been a scammer, but we handed over our evidence to the local police to investigate further.

Such juju men sometimes refer to themselves as herbalists, the name given to healers who use traditional medicine often made from local plants to treat common illnesses.

World Health Organization data shows that Sierra Leone – which suffered a brutal civil war in the 1990s and was at the centre of the Ebola epidemic a decade ago – had around 1,000 registered doctors in 2022, compared to reported estimates of 45,000 traditional healers.

Most people in the West African nation rely on these healers, who also help with mental health issues and treat their patients in shrines where there is an element of mysticism and spiritualism culturally associated with their craft and the remedies they sell.

Sheku Tarawallie, president of Sierra Leone’s Council of Traditional Healers, is adamant that “diabolic” juju men like Kanu are giving healers a bad name.

“We are trying very hard to clear our image. The ordinary person doesn’t understand, so they class us [all] as bad herbalists. One rotting fish can destroy the batch of fish… We are healers, we are not killers,” he told BBC Africa Eye.

Mr Tarawallie is in fact trying to work with the government and another non-governmental organisation to open a traditional medicine clinic to treat patients.

It was those with a lust for power and money who were often behind the ritual killings, he believed.

“When somebody wants to become a leader… they remove parts from human beings. They use that one as a sacrifice. Burn people, use their ashes for power. Use their oil for power.”

The number of ritual killings in Sierra Leone, where most people identify as Muslim or Christian, is not known.

“In most African countries, ritual murders are not officially recorded as a separate or sub-category of homicide,” Emmanuel Sarpong Owusu, a lecturer at the UK’s Arden University, told the BBC.

“Some are misclassified or misreported as accidents, deaths resulting from attacks by wild animals, suicides, natural deaths… Most perpetrators – possibly 90% – are not apprehended.”

When we found another suspected supplier of body parts, he was located in a suburb of the capital, Freetown, called Waterloo, which is notorious for drug abuse and other crime.

“I’m not alone, I have up to 250 herbalists working under my banner,” the man calling himself Idara told Osman, who was again undercover and wearing a secret camera.

“There are no human parts that we don’t work with. Once we call for a specific body part, then they bring it. We share the work,” Idara said.

He went on to explain how some of his collaborators were good at capturing people – and on Osman’s second visit played a voice message from one of them who claimed they were prepared to start going out every night in search of a victim.

If you’re outside the UK, you can watch the documentary on YouTube

Osman told him not to proceed yet but when he later received a call from Idara claiming his team had identified a victim, we contacted Police Commissioner Ibrahim Sama.

He decided to organise a raid – but said his officers would not do so without the involvement of Mr Tarawallie, who often assists the police on such operations.

“When we got intelligence that there is a particular dangerous witchdoctor operating a shrine, we will work with the traditional healers,” said an officer on the raid, Assistant Superintendent Aliu Jallo.

He went on to express the superstitions some officers have about tackling rogue herbalists: “I will not go and provoke situations. I know that they have their own powers that are beyond my knowledge.”

After Idara was captured – discovered hiding in the roof clutching a knife – Mr Tarawallie began searching the property for evidence, saying there were human bones, human hair and piles of what looked like dirt from cemeteries.

This was enough for the police to arrest Idara and two other men, who were charged in June with practising sorcery as well as being in possession of traditional weapons used in ritual killings. They pleaded not guilty to the charges and have since been granted bail, pending further investigations.

The police raided this house in Waterloo and arrested the occupants, including Idara, who were later charged under anti-witchcraft laws

As we never heard back from the police in Kambia about Kanu, I tried to call him myself to challenge him about the allegations directly, but he was unreachable.

There are occasions when even high-profile cases appear to stall. Two years ago, a university lecturer went missing in Freetown and his body was later found buried in what police say was the shrine of a herbalist in Waterloo.

The case was referred in August 2023 by a magistrate to the High Court for trial, but two sources have told the BBC it has not been pursued so far and those detained by police have been released on bail.

My family is facing similar hurdles finding justice. In May, during our BBC investigation, my 28-year-old cousin Fatmata Conteh was murdered in Makeni.

A hairdresser and mother of two, her body was dumped the day after her birthday by the side of the road where a resident told the BBC two other bodies had been found in recent weeks.

Several of her front teeth were missing, leading the community to believe it was a ritual killing.

“She was a lady that never did harm. She was very peaceful and hard-working,” said one mourner as family, friends and colleagues gathered for a big funeral at her local mosque.

We may never know the true motive for Fatmata’s murder. The family paid for her body to be transported to Freetown for an autopsy – something the authorities could not afford to do – but the post-mortem was inconclusive and no arrests have yet been made.

As is the case for Papayo’s mother, the lack of closure and feeling of abandonment by the police fuels fear and terror in poor communities like Makeni.

Additional reporting by Chris Alcock and Luis Barrucho

Source: Hunting down those who kill people to sell their body parts for ‘magic charms’

Also:

‘Murder for black magic’: when body parts are sold for ‘magical amulets’

A series of murders suspected of being caused by black magic rituals has shaken Sierra Leone

“Murder for black magic”: The horrific stories in Africa where body parts are sold for ‘magical amulets’

Published: November 26, 2025
By: Vox News 

Four years ago, 11-year-old Papayo was killed in a crime believed to have been part of a black magic ritual. His mother, Sallay Kalokoh, is devastated that no one has yet been brought to justice. Papayo was found butchered at the bottom of a well, with body parts removed, including vital organs, eyes and one arm. He had gone to sell fish at the market and never returned.

“We always advise children to be careful. If you sell something, don’t go to some remote corner and don’t accept gifts from strangers. This happens a lot in this country,” Kalokoh said.

Papayo’s murder in the central city of Makeni is just one of many suspected cases of black magic (juju) that are often not investigated or pursued by authorities. In his case, police never confirmed that it was a “ritual killing.”

The dark market for body parts

Juju practitioners promise prosperity and power to clients who pay large sums, believing that human body parts make their spells more powerful. However, with authorities having limited resources – just one pathologist for a population of 8.9 million – it is difficult to gather evidence to prosecute the perpetrators.

Belief in witchcraft is so ingrained in Sierra Leone, even among some police officers, that there is often a fear of pursuing cases, and most remain unsolved.

According to a BBC Africa Eye investigation, the team managed to contact two people who claimed to be juju practitioners and offered body parts for rituals. They said they were part of larger networks and one claimed to have powerful clients in West Africa, but the BBC was unable to verify these claims.

A team reporter went by the name Osman, posing as a politician seeking power through human sacrifice. In a remote area of ??Kambia district, he met a practitioner who wore a red ceremonial mask and threatened to work with top politicians in Guinea, Senegal, and Nigeria. He showed a human skull and a pit where body parts were placed.

When Osman asked for body parts from a woman for the ritual, the practitioner estimated the price at 70 million leones (around £2,500 / $3,000). For the safety of the team, the BBC did not meet the practitioner again, but handed over the evidence to the local police.

The role of traditional healers

Some practitioners are also called traditional healers and use plants to treat common ailments. Sierra Leone has about 1,000 registered doctors and about 45,000 traditional healers, who often also help with mental health issues.

Sheku Tarawallie, president of the Traditional Healers Council, points out that “evil” practitioners give all healers a bad name: “We are healers, not killers. One rotten fish can spoil all the wheat… We are trying to clean up our image.”

He believes that behind the ritual killings are those who covet power and money “when someone wants to become a leader… they remove parts from people. They use them as sacrifices, they burn people, they use the ashes and oil for power.”

Police operations and arrests

A suspected supplier was found in Waterloo, a Freetown neighborhood known for crime and drug use. He claimed to have 250 healers working under him and could provide any body part required.

The police, in collaboration with Tarawallie, organized a raid. Idara was caught hiding on the roof with a knife. Bones, human hair, and cemetery soil were found on the property. He and two others were charged with practicing witchcraft and possessing ritual weapons. They pleaded not guilty and were released on bail.

Other cases and lack of justice

Two years ago, a university lecturer disappeared in Freetown and was later found in a ritual square. Families like Papayo’s and those of her 28-year-old cousin Fatmata Conteh, who was killed in Makeni, face the same obstacles to justice. The autopsy was inconsistent and there were no arrests.

The market for body parts for witchcraft rituals in Sierra Leone remains secretive, dangerous and largely unsolved. A lack of resources, deep-rooted belief in witchcraft and challenges to proper investigation leave communities impoverished and terrified, as families seek justice for their loved ones.

Source: “Murder for black magic”: The horrific stories in Africa where body parts are sold for ‘magical amulets’

And:

Human Sacrifice in Sierra Leone Driven by Black Magic Practices

Published: November 26, 2025
By: Khaborwala International Desk

The superstition surrounding black magic remains deeply rooted in Sierra Leone, where numerous families have suffered killings linked to the illegal trade in human body parts. Shocking details have emerged in an investigation by BBC Africa Eye.

Four years ago, 11-year-old Papayo was murdered in the name of black magic. His mother, Sallai Kaloka, is still waiting for justice. She told the BBC, “I am in great pain. They killed my child, and now there is only silence.”

Sallai said Papayo never returned home after she left for the market to sell fish. When his body was found, vital organs, his eyes, and one hand had been removed. After being missing for two weeks, his mutilated body was discovered in an abandoned well.

She said, “We always warn our children—don’t go to deserted places, be cautious before accepting anything from strangers. Incidents like this happen frequently here.”

According to Sallai, such killings are common in their town, Makeni. Police often do not even classify them as ritual killings. Juju practitioners use human body parts for charms or rituals and lure clients by promising wealth or power. With only one pathologist for a population of 8.9 million, proper investigations are nearly impossible.

Belief in black magic is so strong in Sierra Leone that even police officers are often afraid to investigate these cases, leaving most crimes unresolved. BBC Africa Eye found two individuals who claimed to be juju practitioners and offered to supply human body parts.

One of them said they had clients across several West African countries. A BBC Africa Eye member, disguised as a politician named Osman, travelled to Kambia district near the Guinea border to meet a juju practitioner named Kanu, whose face was covered with a red cloth throughout the meeting.

Kanu said, “I have worked with major politicians in Guinea, Senegal, and Nigeria. People flock here during election periods.” He then showed a dried human skull, claiming, “This belonged to a woman. Someone will take it within a few days.” According to him, female body parts cost 70 million leones, or around 3,000 dollars.

For safety reasons, the BBC made no further contact with him. The collected information has been handed to the police.

Many juju practitioners in Sierra Leone identify themselves as herbalists. Yet, as of 2022, the country had only about 1,000 registered doctors, compared to nearly 45,000 traditional healers. Many people seek help from these healers for mental health and other issues.

Sheku Tarawali, president of the Sierra Leone Council of Traditional Healers, said black magic practitioners like Kanu are tarnishing the reputation of herbalists. He accused some individuals of committing these murders for power and money.

BBC Africa Eye also identified another suspected supplier of body parts in Waterloo. The man, using the alias “Idara”, claimed to have 250 witchdoctors and spirit practitioners working under him and said they could provide any body part if required.

During one meeting, he played a voice note from an associate saying they were ready to hunt for a “victim” that night. After receiving this information, Police Commissioner Ibrahim Sama launched a raid with Sheku Tarawali and a specialist team. Human bones, hair, and various body parts were recovered.

Earlier, the body of a university lecturer had been found in a temple in Waterloo. The case went to the High Court but never progressed, and the suspects were released on bail.

During the BBC investigation, 28-year-old Fatmata Conteh was murdered in Makeni. Her body was found by the roadside the day after her birthday, with several front teeth missing—leading locals to believe it was a ritual killing. Her family sent the body to Freetown for an autopsy at their own expense, but no findings emerged.

Like Papayo’s mother, many families continue to suffer without justice. Police inaction and a culture of fear have intensified widespread panic across the region.

Khaborwala/TSN

Source: Human Sacrifice in Sierra Leone Driven by Black Magic Practices

New twist in attempted ritual murder investigation in Sierra Leone

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Under construction (FVDK)

New twist in attempted ritual murder investigation in Sierra Leone

Published: October 10, 2021
By: Abdul Rashid Thomas – The Sierra Leone Telegraph

Alim Jalloh: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 10 October 2021:

SLPP government stands indicted – no hiding place for NaCSA boss and the chief minister.

Sierra Leoneans at home and abroad are currently in  doubt over the on-going investigation of an alleged ritual murder matter involving an employee of the National Commissioner for Social Action (NaCSA) by the name of Chris.

Investigation mounted by The Times SL revealed that the incident occurred at Fudia Terrace, Spur Loop, Freetown, leaving the whole community in shock.

It was revealed that Chris, who, according to our source, is a consultant hired by NaCSA and having a close relationship with the Head of NaCSA, Dr. Sao-Kpato Hannah Max-Kyne, lives opposite the Siena Patso Junior and Senior Secondary School, from where he is alleged to have surreptitiously abducted, albeit under pretence, three children for performance of some ritual, which he described as ‘sara’.

According to our source, Chris approached the two teachers of the said school and requested access to six virgins to perform charity, and it was communicated to the Principal, who refused to honour that request, and called an urgent staff meeting on the matter.

It was also disclosed that he later offered a handsome reward to the teachers, who then stealthily took three pupils in the company of Chris to an unfinished building nearby, where a native doctor was waiting, who later performed the sacrifice, offering coconut and peak milk to the children.

One of the children ate, whilst the others refused, and were forced to take the coconut and milk home in a plastic bag. This incident, it was further disclosed, took place without the knowledge of the principal and the parents.

It only came to light on the next day, when the little girl that ate the sacrificial food, started experiencing profuse bleeding and stomach pain. After changing several sanitary pads, the parent then took her daughter to the principal, requesting an explanation about where her daughter was taken and what food was offered to her that had resulted in the bleeding.

Upon further revelation, which included the participation of the two teachers, The principal – Lawrence Kamara, then called in the police.

Christian – commonly as Chris, and the culprits were arrested and taken to the New England Ville police station, and were later put on bail, allegedly with the intervention of Dr. Sao-Kpato Hannah Max-Kyne of NACSA, who went to New England police station, coupled with several calls, allegedly from senior government officials, leaving the victims helpless.

Chris and the others were re-arrested again on Monday 4th October 2021, and taken to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), after the story was published by The Times SL Newspaper.

A new twist in the matter came to light when the re-arrested accused were released late last Monday evening, prompting concerned Sierra Leoneans to opine that the arrest of the suspects on Monday morning was a ploy to hoodwink the public that some action was being taken, especially as the matter had generated so much public interest.

Questions are being asked as to why the re-arrest of the suspects, when it was clear that they are going to be released on the same day.

Zainab Kamara, mother of the main victim (the bleeding girl), stated that she is struggling to get medication for her child, and since the incident, no one had approached her to check on the health status of her daughter, adding that as things seem to have taken a different turn, family members of the accused are now getting in touch with her to have an out of police and court settlement, as there are indications that the matter will soon be charged to Court.

Police at CID confirmed that the accused are on bail and that the matter is still under investigation, and the file will soon be sent to the Law Officers’ Department for advice.

The poor mother who could not afford legal fees is now under fear that she will find it difficult to continue with the legal battle because she has no support.

It was also disclosed that the prime suspect in the matter had earlier mentioned the name of the Chief Minister – Jacob Jusu Saffa (Photo), asserting that he is aware of his act.

However, there are concerns among residents about who owns the unfinished house, where the said ritual was performed.

Source: New twist in attempted ritual murder investigation in Sierra Leone

A Killing, A Torture & A Death Sentence For Ritual Murder (Sierra Leone)

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The case presented here is not a recent one. It relates to the year 2000. A young boy, Brima Kposowa, had been missing for several days from the village of Temede in Bumpeh District, Sierra Leone. His mutilated body was found after an apparently intensive search in early May 2000. A number of suspects was soon arrested, but the subsequent investigation and trial of the accused raise many questions.

Dr. Lans Gberie has been studying the case, as part of an ongoing research into ritual killings. In Dr. Gberie’s own words: “(…) I recently read the trial records of this case, known as ‘Abubakar Kallon vs. the State’. Meticulously bound, they run to 193 pages: consisting of the transcripts of police statements taken, court testimonies, a so-called forensic report, the Judge’s summing up for the juries and Foremen, and the verdict and sentencing statement. The trial appeared to have followed all the formal rules of such proceedings; it certainly was ponderous. But it is hard to say that it was fair.”

For this reason I present his findings and conclusions here. Maintaining ‘the rule of law’ also implies a fair trial. Please judge for yourself whether this has been the case here. It is a lengthy article but certainly worth reading. (webmaster FVDK)

Supreme Court of Sierra Leone

A Killing, A Torture & A Death Sentence For Ritual Murder
By Dr. Lans Gberie
Article in Global Times – Sierra Leone by Amadu Daramy
Published on May 16, 2018

Alhaji Bockarie Kallon was sentenced to ‘suffer death’ by the circuit court sitting in Bo on 24 August 2002. He was 70. Mr. Kallon had been convicted of murdering, for ritual purposes, a 9-year old boy, Brima Kposowa, two years earlier. Judge Olu Ademusu, presiding, noted, apropos of the severity of the crime and the death sentence, that ritual killing was “becoming rampant” in Sierra Leone. “The sentence of the court upon you,” Mr. Ademusu told Mr. Kallon, “is that you be taken from this place to a lawful prison, and thence to a place of execution, and that you there suffer death by hanging until you are dead. And may the Lord have mercy on your soul.”

Mr. Kallon was then taken to Pademba Road Prison and gaoled; I have found no record anywhere of what happened to him next. He might have died forgotten in the prison shortly after (he was 70), as so many condemned prisoners have; but he almost certainly was not hanged.

As part of an ongoing research into ritual killings, I recently read the trial records of this case, known as ‘Abubakar Kallon vs. the State’. Meticulously bound, they run to 193 pages: consisting of the transcripts of police statements taken, court testimonies, a so-called forensic report, the Judge’s summing up for the juries and Foremen, and the verdict and sentencing statement. The trial appeared to have followed all the formal rules of such proceedings; it certainly was ponderous. But it is hard to say that it was fair.

The police report containing the statements of several accused persons upon which the case was built were obtained through torture of almost medieval severity; the doctor who did the ‘forensic examination’ was not a pathologist and his report was inept and ridiculous; and the involvement of certain powerful local forces who were certainly not beyond suspicion with respect to their culpability in the crime raises the probability of a mistrial.

Map of Sierra Leone – showing Bumpeh District

Context

The context of the trial is of more than incidental interest. The body of young Brima Kposowa, who had been missing for several days from the village of Temede in Bumpeh District, was found after an apparently intensive search in early May 2000. At almost exactly this moment, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels had abducted 300 United Nations peacekeepers and killed some, triggering a massive crisis for the UN’s budding peace operation in Sierra Leone. The Kamajors, then a very powerful pro-government force combating the RUF, was active in the Temede area. Their spiritual leader, Alieu Kondewa, appears in the pages of the trial records; he and the local chief ordered the Kamajors to apprehend four people in connection to the disappearance; they arrested those four people even before the body was found. They four were taken to a police station in Bo. The Bo police, under Karrow Kamara, then despatched a team to the village to search for the missing boy. The police team joined the Kamajors in this search. The body was found in a swamp some distance away from the village: it had not been hidden or buried, suggesting that if it was murder there was no real attempt at cover up.

The police then brought Dr. Brima Kargbo, a senior medical officer attached to the Bo Government Hospital, to examine the body where it had been found. This was on 5 May. He was not a pathologist. His report, tendered to the court as Exhibit A, is confusing: it outrages chronology and sequencing, not to mention probability. He said he found the body “lying and almost decomposing”, and that he conducted the examination on the spot. “Looking at the corpse I did not see the head,” he said. Upon further search, he said, “we found the head under a shrub about two to three yards from where the deceased was lying.” The search party had to wait for the doctor to look for the head? Though the body was decomposing, Dr. Kargbo’s report does not mention that it was smelling, something that surely would have led the search party earlier to the head, which must have been similarly decomposing. The body appeared to have been purposively decapitated: “the heart and liver were not seen,” Dr. Kargbo said.

Borfina

In one of his statements – which he later recanted in court because he claimed, credibly, that it had been extracted from him through torture – Mr. Kallon had claimed that he had removed those body parts after killing Kposowa to take to Guinea, there to be used by some unnamed ‘Meresin’ men to make ‘borfina’. This ‘borfina’, a powerful concoction, would have aided him in his quest to become a Paramount Chief.

The word ‘borfina’ is massively resonant in the literature relating to the Human Leopard phenomenon: it entered the popular imagination after the British colonial authorities set up a special commission court to try several dozen cases relating to mysterious killings attributed to ‘human leopards’ in 1912. Sir William Brandford Griffith, a former governor of the Gold Coast, was summoned from his retirement in London to preside over the commission. He described the ‘borfina’ as “a terrible fetish” which must be “frequently supplied with human fat” to remain potent. He later ventured the opinion that the incidental uses of human flesh by the Human Leopards was not “to satisfy any craving for human flesh nor in connection with any religious rite, but in the belief that the victims’ flesh will increase their virility.” He drew this conclusion from the fact that “all the principal offenders were men of mature age, past their prime.”

I shall return to the Griffith commission, his fatuous opinion, and the details of what was almost certainly a terrible mistrial that led to the hanging of a large number of perfectly innocent men during a moment of colonial hysteria. Griffith won international renown as a champion of Western civilization in one of the barbarous corners of the world for this trial; it earned him obituary notices in the Times of London and the New York Timesupon his death.

In Mr. Kallon’s trial, several people, including the parents of Kposowa, were charged with being accessory to the murder of the boy. Karrow Kamara, who was then officer in charge at the Bo Police Station, was the chief statement taker. He emerges from the pages of the trial records as a vicious torturer of demented cruelty. His preferred method was to use a plier, a club, and other blunt heavy instruments to beat up witnesses and the accused; he had the ear of one witness sliced off; he put out fire from cigarettes on their faces; and he had the mother and aunt of Kposowa so severely beaten that they bled through their genitalia, in which he then inserted a cocktail of meshed pepper – causing such pain, the aunt said, that it reminded her of when she was circumcised…

(To be continued)

Sierra Leone Supreme Court (2015)

A Killing, Torture & A Death Sentence For Ritual Murder (Part II)
By Dr. Lans Gberie
Article in Global Times – Sierra Leone by Amadu Daramy
Published on May 17, 2018

The State Counsel, Monfred Sesay, charged a total of nine people in connection with the alleged killing. They were Alhaji Abu Bockarie Kallon, for murder; Gassimu Ndanema, Francis Leigh, Abdulai Lamboi, Alhaji Sam, Joseph Sandy, Munda Alfred, Amie Dauda (mother of the deceased), and Mamie James (aunt of the deceased) as accessories to the crime of murder. The nine individuals, the indictment ran, “on 17 April 2000…conspired together with other persons unknown to commit a felony” in the judicial district of Bo.

The evidentiary exhibits upon which the indictment drew were mainly confessions; the accused seemed to condemn themselves with their own mouths. In fact, the so-called confessions, extracted through savage torture, were of an extremely dubious probative value. It is hard to believe, reading those statements, that any lawyer would have used them to make such grave charges: they are very obviously contrived. Here, for example, is how Amie Dauda, the mother of the deceased, described her own role in the murder (to her torturer Karrow Kamara): “The death of my son, Brima Kposowa, was not a natural death. It was caused by five of us, namely myself Amie Kposowa, Jose Sandy, Muda Alfred… We sold Brima Kposowa to one Alhaji Gassimu of Bo.”

Mr. Kallon, the first accused, in his first statement to the police on 4 May 2000 denied any knowledge of the killing. Several hours with the torturer Karrow Kamara the next day, 5 May, produced the following statement: “I now say that I have knowledge about the death of Brima Kposowa…I now say that I killed the deceased…on 17th April 2000 in a swamp, at Timiday bush at about 6:30pm. I alone did the killing…I now say that I have a right to stand for Paramount Chief at Koya Chiefdom…as I hailed from a ruling families [sic].” As part of his preparation to contest for Paramount Chief, Mr. Kallon, described as businessman, said he consulted “co-suspect Gassimu Ndanema,” telling Ndanema that in order to be successful in this endeavour, he must protect himself “by offering human sacrifice to wash” his body, according to the testimony.

To acquire the human being for the sacrifice, Mr. Kallon said he gave Danema Le.300,000 to purchase a boy, money Mr. Nanema used to purchase Brima Kposowa from his parents. The amount of money paid for the boy changed several times during the trial, from Le.300,000 to Le.600,000 and finally Le.800,000. Once bought, Ndanema gave the boy to Mr. Kallon, and drove them away from the village. Mr. Kallon then took the boy, alone, into a swampy area in the bush and – Mr. Kallon’s testimony read – “I laid him flat on the grass and offered my sacrifice…wherein I read ‘Al-Fatiah’ on the said Brima Kposowa five times and thereafter I had to use my knife to cut his throat and in the exercise the head of Brima Kposowa cut off.” He had not wanted to decapitate Kposowa, so he threw the head away. He then slit Kposowa’s stomach and extracted the liver and then “collected some of [Kposowa’s] blood in a red plastic.” He was to take the body part and blood to Labbeh in Guinea for the making of ‘borfina’. In the event, Mr. Kallon said in his testimony, he did not get anywhere near Guinea, because the plastic bag containing the ‘sacrifice’ got burst, spilling its prized content. Mr. Kallon said he got disoriented after this loss, “and this obliged me to give a false statement to the Police.”

The knife with which Mr. Kallon claimed he slaughtered Kposowa, which he described in precise terms, was never found – much like the British were never able to apprehend, after dozens of arrests, the exactly described forked knives allegedly used by Human Leopards. Where the liver and blood got wasted was never identified; Mr. Kallon did not seem to remember such an immensely striking detail. In Mr. Ndanema’s testimony, the decomposing body of Kposowa described by Dr. Kargbo became “skulls”. Amie Dauda did not state how much money she received. Another salient fact is that all the accused were not literate in English, and the statements were taken from them in either Mende or Krio and rendered in English by Karrow Kamara and his co-torturers.

Under cross-examination by the defence, an immensely salient detail emerged from Amie Dauda’s (mother of the deceased). In the morning that her son disappeared, she was home with the boy when he went behind the house “to the toilet.” Shortly after, she said Alieu Kondewa, the Kamajors spiritual leader, drove by the house. “As the vehicle passed, I did not see the child again,” she said. She went in search of the boy and never found him, whereupon she reported the matter to the local authorities, the most powerful of whom were Kamajors. They immediately had her tied “with a Kamajors rope called Baime” and beat her mercilessly. She and others arrested that day were taken to the Bo Police Station where Karrow Kamara “inserted pepper in my vagina.” It was then that “I admitted it was my doing, because the pepper was burning…. It was Karrow Kamara who suggested to me that I sold the child and which is not true.” She acquiesced with Kamara’s accusation, she said, “because of the burning pepper and this was what the police read to me.”

Her sister and co-accused, Mamie, was similarly tortured to ‘confess’ to doing what Karrow Kamara, acting in concert with the local authorities and the Kamajors, wanted her to confess to. “Mr. Karrow Kamara had a rubber with which he was flogging me,” she during her cross-examination. “[Police] Sergeant Gaima came to the scene. He slapped me in my mouth causing one of my teeth to come out.” The torturers then kicked her in the abdomen and “I started bleeding until I lost consciousness,” she said. Once she regained consciousness, they “inserted kanya pepper into my vagina. After that I was unable to walk. I was,” she said, evoking what to her must have been her primal experience of terror, “I was feeling like somebody who had been circumcised.”

Judge Ademusu, summing up for the jury, ignored these statements. He focused on Mr. Kallon who, he said, told the jury that “he was tortured and beaten by OC Karrow Kamara at the scene” of the murder (untrue: Mr. Kallon said he was beaten at the Police Station). However, Ademusu continued, the evidence of Dr. Kargbo, who played the role of pathologist though he had no such qualification, in his “post mortem examination report shows that the first accused’s indirectly made the confession.” Needless to say, it wasn’t Dr. Kargbo’s job to extract any confession, direct or indirect, from the accused.

The jury convicted Mr. Kallon of first-degree murder; and the judge sentenced him to death. The jury found the rest (8 accused persons) Not Guilty of the crime of accessory to the murder, and the judge had them freed.

Nothing in the records of the case prepared me enough for this curious verdict.

Article by Dr. Lans Gberie
Source: Global Times – Sierra Leone

A Killing, A Torture & A Death Sentence For Ritual Murder
Published May16, 2018

A Killing, A Torture & A Death Sentence For Ritual Murder (Parrt II)
Published May 17, 2018

Sierra Leone: The country where children fear election time

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WARNING: Readers may find this story disturbing

Mabinty Kamara – she was found murdered with several parts missing

Published: March 31, 2018
By: BBC

When elections come round in Sierra Leone parents are warned to take extra care of their children, as it’s feared that candidates or their supporters may abduct them and use their organs in black magic rituals. Olivia Acland reports on troubling signs that the rumours may be true.

At 10:00 on Friday 16 February, less than a month before Sierra Leone’s presidential, parliamentary and local elections, 14-year-old Mabinty Kamara clambered down the rocky path outside her house in Freetown. She was wearing a knee-length black skirt and grey polo shirt, and was swinging two plastic jerry cans.

The water pump was about 800m away – just a few minutes’ scramble down and up the stony mud lane carved into the hillside. With her mother away visiting relatives, Mabinty had been told to fetch water by her 25-year-old sister, Alimatu, who was at home finishing up the other morning chores. As Muslims, this was the first day of their weekend.

Alimatu swept the floor of their scruffy, tin-roofed house and shook out the bed sheets. She cooked some rice for her younger brother, sister, and cousin, and washed up the pans. After a couple of hours, though, she started to wonder why Mabinty had not returned. She scrambled down the path, shouting her sister’s name, expecting to find her sitting with friends and gossiping.

At the water pump a gaggle of women said that they hadn’t seen Mabinty, so she started knocking on neighbours’ doors and questioning people on the streets. After hours of fruitless searching she went home and waited, thinking that perhaps her sister had returned to the house when she was out, and since left again. Anxious hours passed and finally at 18:30 Alimatu went to the police station to report her sister missing.

“A policeman told me to go home and that he’d call me if they found her,” she says, twisting one of her short dreadlocks. “I couldn’t sleep at all that night, it’s not like her to stay out. I was very worried.”

The room where Mabinty lived with Alimatu, another sister and a younger brother

Alimatu spent the next four days wandering all over Freetown, checking areas where runaway children are known to sleep rough. She showed a zoomed-in picture of Mabinty, which she had downloaded to her phone from Facebook, to more than 100 strangers.

Five days later she had reached Waterloo, a traffic-clogged industrial suburb an hour’s drive from her house, when she received a call from one of her neighbours. He shouted down the phone that Mabinty had been found: her dead body was wedged between some buildings at the back of the Ministry of Education. She was identifiable by her black skirt, grey top, and the two empty jerry cans lying beside her. Her right leg had been cut off at the knee.

But she was missing more than just a leg, says Dr Owiss Koroma, Sierra Leone’s only pathologist. On examining her body he found that her tongue, ovaries, intestines, womb, fallopian tube and vagina had also been taken. Someone had removed them with surgical precision. The case, says Koroma, has all the hallmarks of a ritual killing.

These murders, carried out so that body parts can be used in black magic rituals, usually involve child victims, whose younger and healthier organs are thought to be more powerful than those of an adult.

“People use body parts for fame, wealth, or to gain power,” says Ibrahim Samura, head of media for Sierra Leone’s police force. The parts can be used in different ways, depending on the purpose. Tongues are thought to empower a person to speak well, for example. A juju man will say, “I need a female breast,” Samura says. “It will be used as a charm or a sacrifice.”

Ibrahim Samura: Parents should not allow unaccompanied children to the beach or to parties

It’s thought that the juju man’s clients could be local or national politicians, or anyone with a strong interest in the outcome of the vote – and that the body parts may sometimes be eaten.

Koroma says cases of ritual killing occur in Sierra Leone every so often, even when elections are not approaching, but he is aware of three cases in the last six months – significantly more than usual.

The first of the victims was a 10-year-old girl in Western Freetown, whose remains were found in a large, checked bag made from thick plastic. She was missing her left ear, left leg, left arm and part of her vagina. After this case, he examined Mabinty Kamara’s mutilated body, and most recently – on 15 March, after the first day of voting but before this weekend’s elections – the dismembered body of a four-year-old, found in a forest in Port Loko, in the north-west of the country. The child had been decapitated, and every organ had been removed, except for the liver. There were two holes in the back of the cranium. Koroma says he is alarmed by the precision of the surgery, as it suggests that someone with significant medical experience was involved.

Police also say there has been a spike in reports of missing children – though they are unable to provide statistics – and have responded with a nationwide publicity campaign.

“We use community radio stations right across the country to alert parents and community leaders about the trend of crime relating to missing children,” says Ibrahim Samura. We tell them that they shouldn’t allow their children under 18 to go to the beach or to parties unaccompanied.”

The message seems to have got through.

A shy schoolgirl told me last week that she is now scared to walk the 4km from school to her house in the village. Anxious parents have said that they are warning their offspring to be particularly cautious – not to accept sweets or lifts from friendly-looking strangers.

Outskirts of Freetown – Sierra Leone

But rumours can swirl out of control. When two children were found dead in the back of a car in January, an online newspaper reported that “cannibalistic rituals, by “devilish politicians” had long been a problem at election times. Pathologist Owiss Koroma examined the bodies, though, and says the children died from carbon monoxide poisoning; there was no evidence of ritual killing.

Those most at risk of abduction are children sleeping out on the streets. Jorge Crisfulli, country director for the Don Bosco Fambul child-welfare organisation, says that between 20 and 25 children have approached his staff seeking shelter in Freetown in recent weeks and that others have returned to their villages.

Twelve-year-old Abdul says he narrowly escaped a ritual killing after climbing on to a neighbour’s roof to retrieve a lost football. The occupants of the house seized him and started beating his head against a step, accusing him of trying to steal from them. He was then held for days in a room, where he was tortured and drugged, he says, until he overheard a chilling conversation between two of the men.

“One of the brothers said let him kill me, cut the parts that you want, and put the rest into black plastic bags to throw in the gutter,” Abdul says.

That evening he escaped and went to the police, who called Don Bosco asking them to take him into their care.

Adia Benton, a cultural anthropologist at Northwestern University in Chicago who has studied Sierra Leone for years, says ritual killing, or at least rumours of ritual killing, “escalate around elections, or times of power struggle”. She remembers hearing similar stories during elections in the country in 2007. The alleged victims were always children.

The country’s most notorious court case, however, involved an adult and was not election-related.

In 2015 a DJ, known as DJ Clef, was invited to play a set at a party in the house of famous herbalist Baimba Moy Foray. Clef, whose real name is Sydney Buckle, was later found dead, missing his genitals, toes, fingers and nose. It’s rare for anyone to be arrested and prosecuted in ritual killing cases, but Baimba Moy Foray and an accomplice were convicted and sentenced to death by hanging – though this was later changed to life imprisonment.

Nobody has yet been prosecuted in connection to Mabinty’s case. Thirteen suspects were rounded up and then released on bail. Alimatu is one of them.

“Every day I must report to the police station to sign in,” she says.

She would normally spend her days selling oil and rice to make money to support her younger siblings, but lately she’s just been sitting listlessly on the steps of her house.

“I don’t feel like selling now, I don’t feel good,” she says.

“It makes me so sad. Only God knows what happened to my sister.”

The police officer who was initially in charge of the case, A S P Mansaray, says three of the suspects were guards from the Ministry of Education and another nine were a random selection of Mabinty’s neighbours who were around at the time of the crime.

He hoped that even if they were not the killers they might be able to provide useful information. However, so far no leads or evidence have emerged. It looks set to be another unsolved crime.

Photographs by Olivia Acland

Source: BBC, 31 March 2018