Former Finance Minister Samuel D. Tweah, has forcefully rejected prosecution’s indictment charging him and four other former officials with personally diverting US$6.2 million to their personal accounts.
Tweah argued that the allegations cannot form the basis of a credible indictment, “because both the prosecution and the investigators “failed to conduct a thorough, serious and competent investigation.”
“Had the investigators undertaken even a modest amount of additional research, they would have gained a proper understanding of the operations of the government. They would have understood what is legally and administratively possible, and what is not possible.”
According to Tweah, the investigation is fundamentally flawed, because the investigators lacked practical legal and institutional knowledge of how the government actually functions.
He described this knowledge gap as the “core problem undermining the entire case.”
Tweah said, contradictions, inconsistencies and incoherence permeate the prosecution’s case.
He pointed specifically to a “double standard in the prosecution’s logic.”
The prosecution cannot have it both ways. It cannot claim the absence of a document is proof of guilt, while simultaneously arguing that the body that would have issued such a document is irrelevant to these proceedings.”
On one hand, the prosecution relies on the absence of physical evidence, such as a letter or authorization from the National Security Council to bolster its theory of wrongdoing. On the other, when the defense references the National Security Council to contextualize government operations, the prosecution objects in court, calling such references “extraneous and irrelevant.”
Tweah contended that the contradiction reveals the weakness of the case: the prosecution is using the lacked of documentation as evidence of criminal intent, while refusing to engage with the very institutional framework that governs how such documentation is produced, approved, and classified within Liberia’s national security architecture.
Prosecutors claim the funds in the consolidated account were “dirty” simply, because money moved from one government account at the Central Bank of Liberia (CBL) to another government account at the Financial Intelligence Agency, FIA. The case centers on the transfer of more than L$1 billion and US$500,000 to accounts associated with the FIA.
As former Minister of Finance, Tweah said: “I oversaw national finances for six years. In that time, approximately US$3.5 billion passed under my signature as a Minister. That is the normal, legal, audited flow of government funds. So, by the prosecution’s logic, they want you to believe that for six years, the entire function of the Ministry of Finance was to launder US$3.5 billion. That is not just false; it is absurd. If moving money between two government accounts constitutes money laundering, then every budget transfer, every salary payment, every disbursement to a government agency for the last six years would be a crime.”
Tweah told the court that the charge of money laundering should be “thrown out through the window of evidence, using both logic and law.”
“The facts: none of the defendants ever laundered any government money. The transactions in question have been proven to be legal and legitimate government-to-government transfers, documented, authorized, and consistent with the Public Financial Management Law of Liberia.”
He urged the court to erase from memory “any notion that money laundering occurred here.”
“The prosecution has presented no evidence of concealment, no evidence of illicit origin, and no evidence of personal enrichment. What they have shown you is the ordinary operation of government.”
The indictment further alleges that Jefferson Karmoh, in the discharge of his duties as then-National Security Advisor to the President and Secretary of the National Security Council, knowingly acted without approval or authorization from the Minister of Justice or the NSC when the FIA was admitted into the National Joint Security.
The indictment claims he conspired with Cllr. Nyanti Tuan, then Acting Minister of Justice and Chair of the National Joint Security to admit the FIA.
But, in his testimony, Tweah said, the NSC and the National Joint Security operate under the direction of the President.
“The record will show that the FIA’s role in national security coordination was not clandestine, but functional. Intelligence agencies worldwide sit on joint security bodies.”
According to him, prosecution has not produced any statute, regulation, or council resolution that was violated.
“An allegation of ‘no approval’ is not proof of illegality. Where is the law that says the FIA cannot sit with the National Joint Security? Coordinating government agencies to fight financial crimes and terrorism financing is not a criminal act. It is governance.”
“No witness has testified that these transfers were hidden. No document shows funds diverted to private use. No law has been cited that criminalizes inter-agency cooperation,” Tweah added.
The hearing continues.