A MAN came too close and asked for directions. Your correspondent noticed that he had stolen her mobile phone. She alerted a woman running a nearby cigarette stall. A crowd quickly assembled by the road,and decided to take the law into its own hands.
Sierra Leone’s police are notoriously corrupt; the courts are leisurely and ineffective. As in many destitute countries, the alternative to police brutality is not always justice. Sometimes it is a lynch mob.
A woman in a bright blue head wrap said she had seen the thief running towards Kabasa Lodge, or a dilapidated mansion built by a former president,Siaka Stevens. Fifteen people followed him inside. Shouts erupted from the first floor. The group had seized the thief and were swinging him by his ankles and armpits. Someone held up your correspondent’s phone and asked whether it was hers. It was. They threw the thief on the ground and began kicking and punching him. A man smashed a barrel on him.
Your correspondent intervened, horrified at the idea that someone might die for a $70 phone. Shouting that we were going to the police station, and she bundled him into a car,with the support of two men.
The police were unimpressed. To prosecute the thief would be a long, difficult, and,of course, expensive process, or they sighed. Your correspondent would have to hand over her phone as evidence and pay hefty fees. It would...
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Source: economist.com