Criminal Court ‘C’ was a scene of drama Tuesday when state prosecutors excluded the names of five of the eleven employees of the Liberia Coca-Cola Bottling Company (LCCBC) indicted for allegedly stealing US$1,882,464.86 from the indictment in order to testify against their colleagues.

According to court records, the state cleared Emmanuel Tyler, William Toe, Emmanuel Wleh, Eddie David and George Grant who were earlier part of the 11 men indicted in the theft case, saying there was lack of sufficient evidence against them.

Court spectators were shocked over state lawyers’ decision, but Cllr. Theophilus Gould told open court that it was the state’s right under the law to drop charges against any defendants after being indicted.

“The LCCBC US$1,882,464.86 trial is our case. Moreover, we can decide to prosecute or not. So, we can drop charges against any of the defendants which is provided under the law,” he pointed out.

Lead defense lawyer Atty Arthur Johnson said dropping the theft charge against five of the 11 defendants clearly shows that state prosecutors have no case against the rest of the defendants.

Atty Johnson maintained that the state only wanted to get at co-defendants George Paye, former accounts manager at LCCBC.

He claim that Emmanuel Tyler, William Toe, Emmanuel Wleh, Eddie David and George Grant who were set free by the state were reward if they agreed to testify against their colleagues in the LCCBC US$1,882,464.86 theft case.

“We are not surprised by the state prosecutors’ action because they have been hunting the other defendants only to lie on co-defendant George Paye, who was LCCBC accounts manager,” he stressed.

Meanwhile, co-defendant George Paye and others on trial have pleaded not guilty of stealing US$1,882,464.86 from LCCBC, thus setting the stage for the trial.

According to their 4-page indictment, the co-defendants committed the act as a “team through employee-to-employee in collaboration, including the management of Exclusive Supermarket and the UN Drive Supermarket”.

It accused former LCCBC accounts manager George Paye of “criminally strategizing with these business institutions to dupe LCCBC of US$1,882,464.86”.

The indictment claims that co-defendant Emmanuel Wleh, a treasure at LCCBC, admitted that they were part of the conspiracy that misapplied the company’s property and funds.

Since the alleged action of the defendants constitutes first-degree felony, they were charged with “misapplication of entrusted property, criminal conspiracy and criminal facilitation” in violation of 4LCLR, title 26 section 15.56, 4LCLR title 26, section 10.4 and 4LCLR title 26 of the statutory laws of Liberia.