Information Minister, Ledgerhood Rennie, has described as welcoming, but utterly revealing, police findings into social media claims and wide public rumors of ritualistic killings in some parts of the country. This follows postings of gruesome images purported to be Liberians who were murdered for ritualistic purposes.
During a media engagement on Wednesday, September 29, 2021, the leadership of the Liberian National Police dismissed claims that there has been a spate of ritualized killings in the country. LNP authorities said they have not established any evidence of such killings as widely rumored.
Commenting Thursday upon arrival in the country from his Official Visit to Washington DC, Minister Rennie said it was sickening and wicked for some Liberians to engage in such a devilish ploy only to damage the image of the government and country for personal political gains.
Citing specific cases that the police had dismissed as far from the truth, the Information Minister said it was chilling to learn that some of the assertions made by so-called victims of the alleged crimes had no iota of truth and that most could not even be verified to have taken place, including the one of a man claiming to have been whisked to Bong County to be murdered.
Minister Rennie lauded the LNP for the professional manner in which it handled these wild allegations, saying good always triumphs over evil.
The Minister reiterated how the call log of the alleged victim, in this case, showed that he never even left the Monrovia area during the period under investigation.
“What a shame”, Minister Rennie remarked.
Commenting on another incident that police investigation uncovered to be untrue is the claim on social media that a motorcyclist name Daniel Booky was murdered on Wednesday, September 29, 2021, when that crime instead actually happened in 2018. The MICAT Boss said it was a sheer act of cowardice on the part of those spreading such brazen falsehood.
Minister Rennie described as an utter desperation for political notoriety the false claim of the People Liberation Party’s Secretary-General, David Beyan, who said he had been attacked by unknown gunmen but was later found by police to be far from the truth. The police inquest – which involved subpoenaing medical records – established that Beyan shot himself accidentally and tried to cover up his action because he had illegally acquired the gun.
Minister Rennie said The Liberian government is alarmed by these actions by unscrupulous people intended to deliberately malign the image of the government and the country for selfish political motives. The latest action is a repetition of a similar perversion that happened in 2018 when a group of people created the hoax that 16 billion dollars came to the country and was siphoned. Following an international investigation, this was established to be untrue.
Other seeming political ploys involved Madam Justina Taylor, a person who falsely claimed to have been the victim of torture – creating a violent protest – and the erroneous assertion that employees of the Liberian Revenue Authority were murdered.
These machinations are designed by some unpatriotic Liberians, who don’t appear to have moved beyond the 2017 General and Presidential election’s loss. Their selfish actions hurt the country and its people more than it does the government.