Armed Robbers Dog TQ Harris, FAPL

28 July 2011

Reports from the provincial highland city of Gbarnga, in Bong County, said unknown armed robbers, last Saturday night, burglarized the Gbarnga office of the Freedom Alliance Party of Liberia (FAPL) and made away with several items.

The reports said the robbers took away the party’s Gbarnga convention documents, office furniture, and bathroom fixtures, including a face basin and a commode, from the office, which are located in the “Center Area” towards the Gbarnga-Ganta Highway.

FAPL Standard-bearer and prospective 2011 presidential candidate, Mr. TQ Harris, told The Analyst that the party’s National Chairman, Wilfred Wade, and its Bong County Chairman, Mr. Frederick Doru, informed him of the “shocking situation” in a dispatch Monday.

He quoted the two party officials as reporting that they had already taken the landlord to the crime scene and reported the burglary to the Gbarnga Police Detachment.

He did not say what the police did or planned to do, but he quoted the report as saying that the burglars attacked the office about midnight Saturday and left the scene by early morning hours, Sunday.

He said the only furniture of value the burglars left in the office was a large sofa, which he believed they could not carry because of its bulk. He said they broke in through the backdoor of the office. Whether it was guarded at the time, he did not say.

“They actually cleaned out the entire office including uprooting the bathroom toilet from the floor! Only a large chair probably too big to take at the time and a table were left there,” he said.

He said neither him, nor the party, has any clue regarding what was happening, but he recalled the claims of the armed robbers, who attacked him in Monrovia last week, that they were agents and noted that the Gbarnga burglary was not ordinary.

The Gbarnga burglary is the seventh encounter Mr. Harris has had with armed criminals in less than a month.

He reported last week that armed men broke into his Paynesville home 24 hours after he moved into it, held him at weapon point, and made away with thousands of US and Liberian dollars and several valuable items worth thousands of US dollars.

He alleged at the time that the robbers took away US $40,000, L $100,000 in cash intended for his presidential campaign, and several valuable household and personal possessions.

The stolen items, he claimed at the time, included a US $25,000 gold Rolex watch, a US $500 gold watch, a Sony Laptop, a Memorex Flatbed color scanner, a Pentax 35mm X 200mm lens camera, and a Samsung Digital Camera.

The armed men reportedly also took away a LoneStar Cell Internet modem, two 2-GB flash drives, and six cell phones, including a US $600 unused touch-screen cell phone.

Mr. Harris told this paper at the time that the Paynesville attack was the sixth time that armed robbers attacked him, but that it was the first time the robbers succeeded in breaking into his home.

In previous attempts, according to Mr. Harris, the robbers tied up, gagged the security offices on duty, and made away with a large portable generator, over 40 gallons of diesel fuel, and several other items.

He said at the time that he reported the robbery and the burglary to the police in Monrovia, but that to his surprise, the police had made no arrests, neither had they recovered any items and returned to them to him.

The FAPL standard-bearer said while he has no clues regarding what was happening to him as he prepared his party for the 2011 presidential and legislative races, he believed the Sinkor robbery and robbery attempts and the Paynesville and Gbarnga burglaries indicated a pattern of criminal harassment.

“This recent action by unknown thieves has raised alarm within the campaign. People now are asking if this is an organized criminal syndicate bent on disrupting TQ Harris’ campaign,” he said.

Following last week’s attack on his person by robbers, Mr. Harris told this paper that he was in consultation with his counsels to petition the Ministry of Justice for the permit to purchase and possess a firearm. He did not say how far that consultation has gone.

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