Samura Kamara, the Foreign Minister of Sierra Leone, addresses the 72nd UN General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, September 22, 2017 in the United Nations. FREETOWN, Nov 26, Sierra Leone's Anti-Corruption Commission has indicted six officials on corruption charges, including an opposition front-runner for the 2023 presidential election.
Samura Kamara was the presidential candidate for the now-opportunist All People's Congress APC party in the 2018 election, and is presumed to be the candidate for the 2023 election.
The head of chancery and the former and current financial attaches at the country's mission to the United Nations in New York are among the others.
The six are charged with various counts of corruption, including $4.2 million for the renovation of Sierra Leone's chancery building in Manhattan.
Kamara is charged with misappropriation of public funds, amounting to $2,560, 000, meant for the chancery building's reconstruction, according to a statement released by the commission late on Thursday.
He was a foreign minister at the time of the alleged wrongdoing.
Kamara said his legal team was studying the indictment. His campaign team denied any wrongdoing in a short statement, saying that his forty years of public service, his unblemished character has never been questioned at national and international levels. Hundreds of Kamara supporters accompanied him when he was brought in for questioning at the Anti-Corruption Commission headquarters in Freetown earlier this month, saying the charges were politically motivated. The supporters clashed with police who used teargas to disperse them.
The commission said that the six are due to appear in court on December 10.