IPNEWS: For weeks there had been heated debates about whether to admit a machine translator into a trial involving four suspects in the 2022 cocaine burst.
Now, Criminal Court ‘C’ on Thursday, March 9, accepted that will allow a machine translation system into a trial involving four people accused of being part of a US$100 million cocaine smuggling operation.
Among the accused were Malam Conte, a Guinea-Bissau national who is fluent in Arabic, and Makki Admeh Issam, a Portuguese, the key figure in the case.
Larsana Keita was nominated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to help translate into Arabic language and Tito Abanobi for Portuguese.
They were rejected by the defendants on grounds that the two translators were not fluent in Arabic and Portuguese, respectively, which led to the introduction of machine translation.
The machine translation was done yesterday by the parties, (the court, defense, and prosecution). Was tried shortly after its acceptance to provide on-the-spot translations through headphones in English, Arabic, and Portuguese.
The trial was adjourned to Tuesday, March 14, to allow the court to deal with the issues surrounding the rejected translators.
At the opening of the trial, the two translators Keita and Abanobi raised serious contention in the court on the Daily Observer Newspaper March 6 edition under the captioned “Defendants in US$100 Million Cocaine Case Rejects Translators.”
Surprisingly, Judge Blamo Dixon apologized for the said publication, and went on, “Mr. Keita and Mr. Abanobi shall be contacted by the court to assist if the need arises.”
The ongoing trial grow out of the government of Liberia’s seizure of US$100 million worth of cocaine in 2022, during which time, a Liberian named Oliver Zayzay and some of his foreign associates were arrested after seeking to purchase what appeared to be a shipping container full of fresh frozen pig feet from a refrigerated storage facility in Monrovia.
The defendants had initially offered to pay the owners of the container, AJA Group Holdings, the sum of US$200,000 for the entire container which, at the time, cost less than US$30,000.
But when the defendants, within less than eight hours, doubled their offer to US$400,000 and, finally, to US$1 million, AJA Group said they were certain that Zayzay and his associates were dealing with a serious case of narcotics trafficking.
The company said they contacted the United States Ambassador, a move that brought both the American and Liberian anti-narcotics law enforcement agents into the picture and caught the suspects red-handed.
The US$100 million cocaine bust is believed to be the biggest arrest in terms of street value on the African continent so far.
