Published: October 23, 2026
MONROVIA, Liberia — National Security Agency agent Peter Bon Jallah was convicted Friday of the statutory rape and kidnapping of a 16-year-old boy and ordered held at the Monrovia Central Prison until he is sentenced.
Criminal Assizes Court “E” for Montserrado County found Jallah, 63, guilty on both counts after a bench trial but acquitted him of gang rape, ruling that the prosecution had not presented sufficient evidence to support that charge. Assigned Circuit Judge Wesseh Alphonsus Wesseh Sr. delivered the verdict.
Wesseh did not impose a sentence. He ordered Jallah remanded pending a pre-sentence and behavioral report from the Bureau of Probation Services at the Ministry of Justice, suspended further proceedings until the report arrives and instructed the court’s clerk to press the probation office to submit it as soon as possible. The case will return to court for the imposition of judgment and sentence once the report is filed.
Jallah was indicted during the court’s February 2026 term alongside two unidentified men on charges of gang rape, statutory rape and kidnapping. The two men were never brought under the court’s jurisdiction, and Jallah’s case was severed from theirs.
According to the indictment, the boy lived in Sinkor and regularly went to Jallah’s home to do domestic work and run errands, for which Jallah paid him. Prosecutors alleged that Jallah lured the boy to his residence on Nov. 29 and Dec. 24, 2025, and sexually abused him.
The indictment further alleged that on Jan. 1, 2026, after the boy played in a community football league, Jallah met him and offered to buy him football boots. Jallah told the boy to go home, bathe and meet him again, and the two then left in Jallah’s vehicle for an unidentified building in the Camp Johnson Road area of central Monrovia, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors alleged the boy was held there for three days, during which he was sexually abused by Jallah and the two other men. Around 10 p.m. on Jan. 3, the indictment said, the boy was hidden in the back of Jallah’s vehicle and left along 15th Street in Sinkor.
Private security guards found the boy and alerted his parents, and his mother and other relatives took him to the John F. Kennedy Medical Center for a medical examination.
The case was first assigned to Criminal Assizes Court “A” before being transferred to Court “E.” Jallah pleaded not guilty at his arraignment on June 18, 2026, and chose to be tried by a judge without a jury.
The trial was delayed after the court denied a prosecution motion for a change of venue. Prosecutors then petitioned for a writ of certiorari, which the Supreme Court justice in chambers denied, allowing the case to proceed. The regular sitting of the court then expired, and the case was reassigned for trial on Aug. 5, 2026.
The prosecution called 13 regular witnesses and six rebuttal witnesses. The defense called eight regular witnesses and three subpoenaed witnesses from the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Orange GSM and the John F. Kennedy Medical Center.
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