The US government has sternly warned Julius Maada Bio to stop the killings and remember that the death penalty was abolished a few years ago. Sierra Leoneans have wholeheartedly welcomed the timely intervention of the American government in the aftermath of the wave of secret killings in Sierra Leone under the supervision of Maada Bio’s violent SLPP regime. This welcome news was delivered to the illegitimate Sierra Leone President Bio by the US Ambassador to Sierra Leone David Bryan Hunt. It was a stark reminder to the Bio presidency that the death penalty had been abolished under the SLPP regime, with financial backing from the United States government. (Photo: US envoy Hunt reminded Bio of the death penalty abolition).

On Sunday, November 26, 2023, during the military disturbance, the Bio presidency told the world that the incident was a security breach incident but it quickly metamorphosed into a coup d’etat according to the Bio regime. And within those few days, dozens of Sierra Leoneans were killed, including soldiers, police and civilians. Prominent citizen Idrissa Kamara aka Leather Boot, a former soldier and bodyguard to ex-President Ernest Koroma, was publicly assassinated by Maada Bio’s soldiers on that fateful Sunday. The US government has reminded Maada Bio that the US had spent millions on the death penalty abolition exercise.

Hundreds of innocent citizens have been arrested by the Bio police since the dubious coup and there are competent reports that dozens of people, mostly from the opposition strongholds in the northern parts of the country, have been secretly murdered in detention. Political observers have described the secret killings as ethnic cleansing, being systematically carried out in the north and northwest of Sierra Leone since the November 26 coup was announced. SLPP regime has confirmed the arrest of over 24 people suspected to be involved in the so-called attempted military coup. The US government has reminded Maada Bio that the US spent millions to abolish the death penalty abolition in Sierra Leone.

Extra-judicial killings have been the hallmark of the Bio presidency since Maada Bio took power on April 4, 2018. In 2020 alone, dozens of innocent Sierra Leoneans were shot to death by state security on the orders of Maada Bio and top government ministers. Many prisoners were killed at Pademba Road; In Makeni, peaceful protesters were murdered not to mention the massacres in Lunsar, Tombo, Thonko Limba, Mile 91 and so on. Nothing concrete has so far come out of these summary executions. No justice, no investigations to find the culprits, nothing whatsoever has been done by the Bio presidency. The US government has reminded Maada Bio that the US spent millions to abolish the death penalty abolition in Sierra Leone.

Thank goodness for the timely intervention of the US Ambassador Bryan Hunt to remind Maada Bio about the abrogation of the death penalty which the SLPP regime boasted about only to undermine the very essence of the abolition of the death penalty. Sierra Leoneans believe Envoy Hunt’s advice would halt the killing spree in Sierra Leone. As we go to press, the SLPP regime is yet to show one of the arrested suspects for the Sunday coup Amadu Makalo Koita live on television. The Bio agents could only manage to show old pictures of Koita. This has ushered in more questions than answers about his whereabouts. The US government has reminded Maada Bio that the US spent millions to abolish the death penalty abolition in Sierra Leone.