The legal battle over the freedom of Nora Finda Bundoo has taken a new turn.
Finda formerly served as a deputy minister, and chief of protocol to President George Weah, though she was selling cook bowl when took up the assignment at the Executive Mansion.
As such, the fate of her US$6 million criminal appearance bond now resting on the questions of corporate documentation, signing authority, and the financial capacity of the insurance company standing as her surety.
At the center of Wednesday, August 19, proceedings before Criminal Court ‘C’ was an admission by American Casualty Insurance Company of Liberia, (ACCICO) that the wrong business registration certificate was initially attached to Finda’s bond.
ACCICO General Manager, Alieu V. Sheriff, told the court that the error resulted from a mistake by his secretary, who he claimed placed another company’s registration certificate in the bond file.
But while the admission provided the prosecution with another point of attack, Sheriff said, the error was administrative, and did not affect ACCICO’s legal status, or its ability to guarantee Finda’s release.
The development came during the 9th day of jury sitting in the August Term of Court, as Finda’s legal team continued efforts to justify the surety after the prosecution filed objections to the bond.
The proceedings have transformed what would ordinarily be a question of bail into a wider legal examination of whether a private insurance company can place a multimillion-dollar financial guarantee before the court, and satisfy the state that it has the assets, and authority to honor that undertaking.
Finda is facing prosecution alongside several others on allegations of money laundering, theft of property, misuse of public money, property, or records, criminal conspiracy, forgery, and criminal facilitation.
Finda remains presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
But before the court reaches the merits of those allegations, Finda must first overcome the state’s objections to the financial guarantee presented on her behalf.
The defendants named in the proceedings include Francis T. Blamo, Anita Pamela Jallah, Emmanuel Kollie, Anthony Saytue, Philip Toe, Praise Farley, Edwin Kai, Joyce Sawyer, Susannah Nollen, Catherine Satia, Boyd Wah, and Gertrude Daye.
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