Published: February 1, 2025
Temple of Justice – A key prosecution witness in the Capitol Building arson case admitted in court that crucial WhatsApp messages allegedly linking the defendants had disappeared due to a phone’s default timer setting.
During his testimony at the Monrovia City Court, police witness Peter Johnson said he played two alleged recordings from defendant Thomas Etheridge’s phone. But when ordered to read WhatsApp messages said to implicate Etheridge and co-defendant Eric Susay, Johnson said they were gone.
Etheridge and Susay are facing multiple charges, including arson, release of destructive forces, reckless burning or exploding, criminal mischief, reckless endangerment, attempted murder, theft of property, and aggravated assault. The Liberia National Police accused them of being responsible for the attack that set the Capitol Building ablaze.
Defense lawyer Cllr. Wilkins Wright, during cross-examination, questioned Johnson on how the messages could have disappeared when the phone had been in police custody since December 18, 2024, and the default timer was set for 24 hours.
Johnson responded, “Anyone with an internet-enabled phone knows that there is a default timer program that allows users to set messages to disappear within a certain time limit. That’s what happened here. However, we printed hard copies of the conversations from the phone, which we have submitted to the court.”
Cllr. Wright immediately objected to the printed copies, arguing that they were not the best evidence. He insisted that the phone itself, not the printed messages, should be presented as evidence. The prosecution countered, citing Section 25.6 of the Civil Procedure Law, which allows copies of documents to be admitted as evidence if the original is lost, destroyed, or unavailable.
Wright, however, pointed to the same statute, arguing that the best available evidence must always be presented and that printed copies did not satisfy that requirement. After hearing arguments from both sides, the judge overruled the defense’s objection and admitted the printed messages into evidence.
The trial was briefly suspended when the prosecution failed to unlock the phone to replay the alleged recordings. The prosecution then called a technician from the National Security Agency (NSA) to assist, contradicting an earlier claim that the expert was from the Liberia National Police.
Johnson concluded his testimony on January 31, 2025, with the prosecution resting its case after presenting oral and documentary evidence. The court has scheduled final arguments for Thursday, February 6, 2025, in the ongoing preliminary hearing.
Discussion about this post