Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s motorcade commander has been arrested for allegedly smuggling 300kgs of cannabis using the President’s lead vehicle.
The lead vehicle of the motorcade, a Jeep known as Escort 1 allegedly brought the drugs from neighbouring Sierra Leon. The motorcade commander Perry Dolo, was arrested over the weekend along with three other men after crossing from Sierra Leon via the town of Bo Waterside, said DEA director Anthony Souh. The other three men were a Liberian official, a Guinean and a Sierra Leonean believed to be a member of the armed forces, Souh said. He did not provide further details about the men.
“He took the car during his day off to go and do such a thing. He was not on duty but he used the President’s Official car,” Souh said of Dolo. Journalists were denied access to the suspects because they were still being interrogated at the DEA after their arrest by a joint force that included members of the Emergency Response Unit.
“They are still with me going through the process,” Souh said. “We want to speedily send them to court as soon as possible because the case is too high. Using a Presidential car? It’s too big,” he said.
In recent years, Liberian DEA has tried to combat marijuana farming in the country, which is primarily done for consumption and local sales. However weak drug laws have made the practice difficult to curtail. According to 2010 UN World Drug report, 9 percent of Liberian high school students use or smoke cannabis.
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