Published: January 29, 2025
MONROVIA — Less than twenty-four hours after a writ of arrest was issued for Liberia’s Ambassador-Designate to France, Teeko Tozay Yorlay, the Monrovia City Court has dismissed all charges related to the case.
Stipendiary Magistrate Ben Bacon had ordered the arrest of Ambassador Yorlay on allegations of character assassination against William Smith, former Deputy Director for Information Coordination at the Liberia Institute of Geo-Information Services (LISGIS). The allegations stemmed from a 2022 Facebook post by Yorlay, accusing Smith of misappropriating funds intended for LISGIS’ census program.
In the controversial post, Yorlay labeled Smith as a “criminal,” stating: “You’re a criminal. You have stolen the LISGIS Census money. Criminality is in your DNA. Anywhere you go, you must steal. The public should take note of this criminal, not to accept him before he continues with this criminality.”
In response, Smith filed a lawsuit against Yorlay, seeking justice for what he described as reputational damage. The court issued a writ of arrest for Yorlay, despite his public apology posted on Facebook, which read: “I, Teeko T. Yorlay, hereby express my profound regrets for any and all comments I made in April 2022, in private or in public, which could impute crime to the character of Mr. Wilmot F. Smith, former Director General of LISGIS.”
The court’s writ of arrest asserted that Yorlay’s actions were unlawful, intentional, and malicious, aimed at tarnishing Smith’s reputation and subjecting him to public ridicule and hatred. Yorlay’s actions were deemed a violation of Sections 14.27 and 17.3 of Liberia’s New Penal Law.
However, in a document dated January 28, 2025, the Monrovia City Court confirmed the dismissal of the case, stating: “The Clerk Certificate is to the effect that the above-entitled cause of action in these proceedings was dismissed out of the Honorable Court based on the request of the state to have said case dropped. In view of the above, there is no case pending before this Honorable Court involving the parties.”
With the charges dropped, Ambassador Yorlay was released and turned over to his legal counsel, Cllr. Kabineh Ja’neh. The reasons behind the state’s request to drop the charges remain unclear.
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