Momoh’s health deteriorating

Former President Joseph Momoh, who escaped from prison in January this year following the rebel attack on Freetown, is being held hostage by rebels and is in poor health, AFP reported his lawyer Serry Kamal as saying on Friday. Kamal told journalists that he had received letters from Momoh complaining of “slowly losing his eyesight and suffering from swollen feet”, according to AFP. Lieutenant Colonel Chris Olukolade told IRIN on Monday that ECOMOG had been trying to secure Momoh’s release from the RUF since the ceasefire was signed between the government and rebel forces. Momoh was in Freetown’s Pademba Road Prison on conspiracy charges for his part in the May 1997 military coup which ousted President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and brought Major Johnny Paul Koroma, head of the AFRC, to power. ECOMOG forces drove the AFRC out of Freetown and into the bush in February 1998, thus restoring Kabbah to power. Momoh had succeeded Siaka Stevens as leader of the ruling All People’s Congress in 1986 but failed to stop the country’s economic and political decline, according to The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). According to the EIU, growing dissatisfaction with his government led the RUF to launch its rebellion in the southeast of the country and in April 1992, Momoh was ousted by a military coup.