Published: October 19, 2026
MONROVIA — For more than a year, the government told Liberians that former Foreign Minister Dee-Maxwell Saah Kemayah stole rice meant for the country’s disaster victims. The jury that heard the evidence could not agree that he did.
By Lennart Dodoo | News Analysis
Jurors at Criminal Court ‘C’ convicted Kemayah of abuse of office by 11-1 and of economic sabotage and misapplication of entrusted property by 9-3. On theft, they split 7-5, two votes short of the nine needed for a verdict. On conspiracy, eight of the 12 jurors voted to acquit. Neither count produced a verdict.
The outcome falls well short of the case prosecutors built. The indictment cast Kemayah as the central figure in a scheme involving officials of four government institutions and accused him of engineering the removal of 13,895 bags from the National Disaster Management Agency “with intent to have same wrongfully distributed to Defendants’ personal interest and benefit.”
“I did not steal one grain of rice,” Kemayah said when he testified in his own defense in early October.
Abuse of office concerns the unlawful use of official authority. Theft requires proof of an unlawful taking with criminal intent, and conspiracy requires proof of an agreement to commit a crime. Of the eight defendants convicted on Oct. 9, Kemayah is the only one whose theft charge ended without a verdict.
Prosecution Witness Cuts Both Ways
The prosecution’s first witness, investigator John Kumeh, tried to establish evidence of abuse of office.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs absolutely has nothing to do with NDMA issues,” Kumeh testified. He said the transfer of rice out of the disaster agency had no Cabinet directive, presidential mandate, requisition, release voucher, or board resolution behind it.
“It was administrative fiat, not law,” he said.
Under questioning, however, Kumeh testified that Kemayah suspended distribution and set up a committee after reports that the rice was being sold on the market. The committee did not establish that any rice had been sold. Kumeh pointed to no evidence that Kemayah personally sold rice, removed it from a warehouse or received any proceeds. Of the 13,895 bags moved to General Services Agency warehouses, he said, 41 could not be accounted for.
Mary T. Broh, the former director general of the General Services Agency, whose prosecution was discontinued on Aug. 18, testified for the defense. She said Kemayah instructed her to take the remaining rice to her agency’s warehouses for safekeeping, and she complied, The Liberian Investigator reported. Her account supported the defense’s position that the transfer was meant to protect government property, not to steal it.
The Numbers Behind the Theft Charge
The prosecution’s accounting presented a separate problem.
The indictment alleged that 25,054 bags were stolen or unlawfully diverted. By Kumeh’s figures, 13,895 bags were moved into General Services Agency warehouses that already held 11,200, for a total of 25,095. Subtracting the 41 bags he said were unaccounted for leaves 25,054, the exact figure the indictment lists as stolen.
The match suggests the theft figure may have been built from the rice recorded as entering government custody, not from a separately established count of rice that disappeared. The arithmetic alone does not prove the indictment wrong. Settling the question would require warehouse receipts, transfer records and distribution approvals that have not been made public in full.
The indictment’s own figures conflict. One passage alleges diversion of 25,054 bags, while the misapplication count cites 28,412. And a prosecution witness who said 5,000 bags bound for the disaster agency’s Gbarnga hub never arrived could not identify the source of that figure.
Warehouse Officials Cleared
The jury cleared most of the officials who ran the warehouses where, by the state’s arithmetic, the rice went missing.
Evelyn Gbee, the General Services Agency’s warehouse manager, and Mamie Davies, an assistant director, were acquitted on every count. Broh never faced a jury. The only agency official convicted was Edris Bility, the former deputy director for operations, whom the indictment linked to 4,000 bags it said could not be accounted for.
Liability turns on the evidence against each defendant, not on rank. But the outcomes leave open how prosecutors separated officials who handled the rice from those accused of directing where it went.
The Deputy Who Gave the Instruction
The sharpest contrast involves Thelma Duncan Sawyer, Kemayah’s deputy for administration at the Foreign Ministry.
The indictment alleged that the 13,895-bag transfer happened “through the influence and agitation” of both Kemayah and Sawyer. Kumeh testified that Sawyer, as acting foreign minister, directed the General Services Agency to remove the rice.
The jury acquitted Sawyer of theft, economic sabotage and misapplication. Her abuse of office count ended 5-7 and her conspiracy count 4-8, both without verdicts. Kemayah was convicted of abuse of office 11-1.
The two may have carried different responsibility. But the public trial record does not show what evidence established Kemayah’s criminal abuse of authority, while producing no conviction against the deputy who, according to the state’s own witness, issued the instruction.
The Board Chairman
Prosecutors also alleged that Kemayah usurped the disaster agency board’s functions and put Varney A. Sirleaf, then internal affairs minister, in charge of distribution. Sirleaf chaired that board.
Testifying in his own defense, Sirleaf described the transfer as an inter-agency decision prompted by poor storage conditions and inventory concerns. He cited a July 3, 2023, letter resuming distribution under a protocol that, he testified, covered 17,814 bags backed by approval letters.
Asked whether Kemayah ordered him to move the rice, Sirleaf rejected the claim. “It’s false and misleading,” he said.
The jury convicted Sirleaf on all five counts, including conspiracy by 10-2. Kemayah’s conspiracy count ended without a verdict, with eight jurors favoring acquittal.
A conspiracy conviction can stand even when the jury hangs on another alleged participant. But the result departs from the prosecution’s account, which said Kemayah directed the scheme and brought Sirleaf into it.
The indictment also accused Sirleaf of taking 1,050 bags “under the pretext of distributing same to disaster victims, without documentary evidence.” Broh testified that about 1,050 bags went through the Internal Affairs Ministry to John-Charuk Siafa, whom she identified as Monrovia’s current mayor, for young people in a clean-up campaign. Her account explained the allocation, though it did not establish that the distribution was lawful or properly documented. Broh was not tried. Sirleaf was convicted on every count.
Agency Head Cleared, Staff Convicted
The verdicts inside the disaster agency ran the other way.
Henry O. Williams, the agency’s former executive director, faced one of the most specific allegations in the indictment: that he left 4,317 bags in another person’s custody and later took them himself. Williams denied personally appropriating any rice. The jury acquitted him 12-0 on all five counts, the only defendant cleared unanimously on every charge.
Officials who worked under him were convicted. Augustine M. Kollie, director for disaster victims, and Achievego M. Doe, communications director, were found guilty on all five counts. Edward S. Konneh, accused of taking 5,595 bags without records, was convicted on four. Rosetta L. Gbassay Bowah, a logistics officer, was convicted on three.
Momolu Johnson, the former deputy internal affairs minister for administration, is another case in point. When the indictment was filed in June 2025, The Liberian Investigator reported that it identified Johnson as an official who attended meetings at General Services Agency headquarters allegedly organized by Kemayah. The reported allegations tied no specific quantity of rice to him.
The jury convicted Johnson on all five counts, including conspiracy by 11-1. Kemayah, who allegedly organized the meetings, was not convicted of conspiracy.
What the Verdict Leaves Open
Across 65 counts against 13 defendants, jurors returned 34 guilty findings, 20 acquittals and 11 counts without verdicts. None of the guilty findings were unanimous. The highest vote for conviction on any count was 11-1.
Kemayah has called the case a “public witch-hunt” and said prosecutors never proved he benefited personally or acted with criminal intent.
Gbassay Bowah has also maintained her innocence. In a Facebook post, , she said she faced pressure to become a state witness. The claim has not been independently verified.
“My conscience is not for sale,” she wrote.
The Asset Recovery and Property Retrieval Taskforce called the verdicts a “significant milestone” in the fight against corruption. Its chairman, Cllr. Edwin Kla Martin, said the taskforce would defend the convictions if they are challenged at the Supreme Court.
Discussion about this post