Published: October 26, 2026
MONROVIA – Former Foreign Minister Dee-Maxwell Saah Kemayah’s political party says it will back his appeal to Liberia’s Supreme Court after a jury convicted him in the Saudi-donated rice case. The party insists he never took any of the rice or directed it to anyone.
The Movement for Economic Empowerment (MOVEE), which Kemayah leads as political leader and standard-bearer, said the mixed verdicts the jury returned Oct. 9 at Criminal Court “C” are “not the finality of the law in this case.” The party said it supports his lawyers in taking exception to the verdicts and appealing when they see fit.
“MOVEE hereby makes it clear that it has absolute and unshaken confidence in the innocence of its Political Leader and Standard Bearer,” the party said in a statement.
The 12-member jury, sitting before Judge Ousman F. Feika, found Kemayah guilty in a split decision. All defendants faced five counts: theft of property, economic sabotage, misapplication of entrusted property, abuse of office and criminal conspiracy. Accounts of how the jury ruled on each of Kemayah’s counts differ.
Former Internal Affairs Minister Varney A. Sirleaf and former Deputy Internal Affairs Minister Momolu Johnson were convicted on all five counts. The case involves 13 former officials of the CDC government, along with other co-defendants. Several were acquitted, and the verdicts for at least two others remain unresolved.
Saudi Arabia donated 29,412 bags of 25-kilogram rice to Liberia in 2023 for disaster victims and vulnerable people. The indictment alleged that about 25,054 bags were diverted, misapplied, rebagged, sold or never accounted for through the National Disaster Management Agency.
Sentencing has not been scheduled.
The prosecution, led by the Asset Recovery and Property Retrieval Taskforce, has said it will fight any appeal. “We are prepared. Definitely when they go to the Supreme Court, we will equally go there and defeat them there,” Cllr. Edwin Kla Martin, the taskforce’s chairman, said after the verdict.
MOVEE said testimony at trial from Sirleaf, Johnson and former General Services Agency Director-General Mary T. Broh showed that Kemayah never took, diverted or misappropriated any of the rice, and never authorized or recommended anyone to receive it. Prosecutors had earlier dropped the charges against Broh.
The party called the case political persecution. It said the campaign against Kemayah began in 2024, when the current government objected to his appointment as ECOWAS ambassador to Sierra Leone. MOVEE said it supports the fight against corruption but that it “must not be selective, vindictive.”
MOVEE urged supporters in Liberia and abroad to “remain calm, resolute, prayerful, and law-abiding.” It said the party’s work continues under Kemayah’s leadership. The statement was signed by National Secretary General Jeremiah Edison Paye and approved by National Chairman Prince G. Mehn.
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