The Special Assistant of the Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Mr. Cletus Noah, on the February 25th edition of the Spoon Talk was accused by Cllr. Jerome Verdier, as the person who made the phone call to Mr. Matthew Innis to meet his boss at his home, which led to his untimely death. According to Cllr. Verdier, Innis met his untimely death at the hands of the Minister of Finance’s instruction.
Matthew Innis was the Deputy Director for Micro-Finance, Regulation and Supervision Department, Central Bank of Liberia, who was found dead on the early morning of March 3, 2019 along the 72nd Boulevard. On Saturday, February 25, 2023, the Executive Director of the International Justice Group (IGJ), Cllr. Jerome Verdier, appeared on Spoon Talk and accused Mr. Noah of placing a phone call to Mr. Innis to meet with his boss at his home. He alleged that Mr. Innis was pursued for refusing to do a report on the US$25 million used by the government during the mop-up exercise, noting that Innis claimed that the money did not pass through his office, nor was he a part of those who distributed the money. According to Cllr. Verdier, Innis refused to do the report on ground that he had no substantive information about how the money was expended.
He claimed that after many failed attempts to coerce Innis to do the report the way they wanted it, a plan was hatched to permanently silence him. According to him, to get Innis to leave his house to the destination of murder, Mr. Cletus Noah was used to place a call to him to meet with the Minister of Finance at his residence, and when Mr. Innis arrived the minister held a brief conversation with him, left him sitting and walked out. He claimed that, while Mr. Innis sat alone, a group of gang entered, jumped on him and injected him with a substance that left him helpless.
Cllr. Verdier told the Spoon Talk that, after the attack on Mr. Innis, he was then placed in a car and driven to 72nd Boulevard, where the hit-and-run plan was orchestrated.
Even though the Hot Pepper cannot independently verify any of the accusations directly pointed at the individuals Cllr. Verdier accused, the paper has sufficiently investigated the death of Innis, and can safely say that he was not killed by a hit-and-run vehicle, as was pronounced by the Government of Liberia (GOL), but was instead brutally murdered by an organized state-sponsored crime gang.
Unfortunately, Verdier’s accusation against Mr. Cletus Noah, which has caused the Hot Pepper to reopen the Matthew Innis death investigation, appears to be far-fetched and out of order.
During the Hot Pepper investigation, Mr. Noah was described as a Bible-believing Christian and a devoted Catholic. It was established that Mr. Noah stays in White Planes with his family, wakes up early, daily, for work, and is seated behind his desk as early as 8:00 a.m., a work habit he is said to have acquired from the Catholic School System when he worked at St. Teresa’s Convent as Business Manager.
Speaking to a sample of instructors at Convent, the predominant view was that Mr. Noah worked for St. Teresa’s Convent with distinction; he is honest and loved by both the staff and students. This paper was informed that Mr. Noah, two weeks ago, left his busy schedule to spend his entire day at St. Teresa’s Convent, in honor of Sister Everlina FMM’s birthday.
On Sunday, February 26, 2023, the Hot Pepper Editor met with Mr. Noah at the Lady of Lebanon/St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, where he had gone to worship, in order to have an in-person conversation with him about Verdier’s allegation. A question was posed to him: “Were you the one who called Mr. Matthew Innis to meet with your boss that led to his untimely death?” At the same time, the editor closely watched and monitored Mr. Noah’s body language.
But responding to the question without any sign of guilt, Mr. Noah said he has never spoken to Mr. Matthew Innis before—neither by telephone or in person. He said he was informed about Cllr. Verdier’s accusation by his brother who listened to the talk show, but he was yet to listen to it.
According to Mr. Noah, he knew Mr. Innis from the University of Liberia (UL), and knew that he lived around the School of Christ, but since they assume state power he has never seen nor spoken to Mr. Innis.
Mr. Noah, whose body language remained stable as he spoke, challenged Cllr. Verdier to produce his call log from both Lonestar and Orange. He further said that if the International Justice Group (IJG), which Cllr. Verdier heads, comes up with the call log between him and Mr. Innis, he will immediately resign his job at the Ministry of Finance and turn himself over to the Ministry of Justice for prosecution. He said once it is established that he has had conversations with Mr. Innis, it means that his hands are involved with his death.
When the Hot Pepper Editor contacted a high ranking member of the International Justice Group (IJG) in Washington D.C. and squarely threw at him Mr. Cletus Noah’s challenge, the IJG Executive said that they have in the United States one of those who was personally involved in the brutal murder of Mr. Matthew Innis as a witness. The IJG Executive claimed that the notorious murderer informed them that it was his cellphone that Mr. Noah used to call Mr. Innis.
This explanation from the IJG Executive fell short of what was explained by Cllr. Verdier on the Spoon Talk on Saturday, February 25, 2023: it was assumed from Cllr. Verdier’s explanation that Mr. Noah used his personal phone to call Mr. Innis, but unfortunately a third party, who happens to be a notorious criminal, has surfaced.
As the paper’s investigation stands, it has become the words of a notorious criminal against the words of a devoted Catholic and an excellent statesman who, according to investigation, does not have the emotional ability and mindset to harm anyone. Investigation continues.