lesbian activist's killer escapes

By Beth Shapiro (365Gay.com New York Bureau)

July 18, 2005: Freetown - The man being held in the murder of Sierra Leone lesbian activist, Fannyann Eddy, has reportedly escaped from police detention.

Reports indicate Emmanuel Sankoh, 19, was one of an undisclosed number of prisoners who escaped from court holding cells on Monday July 11.

Sankoh had been awaiting trial in the High Court of Freetown.

Eddy, the founder of the Sierra Leone Lesbian and Gay Association, was found dead in the organization's office in Freetown last October. She had been raped repeatedly, stabbed and her neck was broken.

Eddy was known across Africa. She founded the Sierra Leone Lesbian and Gay Association in 2002.

While LGBT citizens lived closeted and in constant fear Eddy was a visible and courageous figure, lobbying government ministers to address the health and human rights needs of gays and lesbians.

In April, 2004, she was part of a delegation of sexual-rights activists whom Human Rights Watch and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) helped attend the annual session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.

Eddy met with her own government's delegation, and testified to the Commission about lesbian and gay rights in what she called "my beloved Sierra Leone ."

"We face constant harassment and violence from neighbors and others," she told the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.

"Their homophobic attacks go unpunished by authorities, further encouraging their discriminatory and violent treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people."
Eddy and her organization documented harassment, beatings and arbitrary arrests of lesbian, gay and transgender people in Sierra Leone.

She left behind a 10-year-old son.

The country is emerging from a devastating 11-year civil war that ended in 2002. The war was characterized by egregious human rights abuses by all sides but especially by rebel forces, including widespread rape, murder, and torture.

Sankoh was arrested in January. It is not clear if the motive was homophobia as speculated by a number of international human rights groups, robbery or revenge. Sankoh was a former employee - a janitor whom she fired a week earlier.

"This is an extremely disheartening turn of events and a blow to our efforts to pursue justice and accountability for human rights atrocities committed against gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people," Paula Ettelbrick, Executive Director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission said.

"We feel most terribly for Fannyann's family and friends who have endured so much as a result of her murder."

Ettelbrick said that within the last few months the IGLHRC had became increasingly concerned about consistent postponements of the legal proceedings against Sankoh.
Working with local human rights advocates, IGLHRC engaged the services of a leading human rights attorney to monitor the preliminary investigation that was examining prima facie evidence for the matter to be sent up to the High Court for trial.

It was the monitor who alerted IGLHRC of the defendant's apparent escape.

Ettelbrick said that the IGLHRC has also been concerned that it appears that Sankoh did not act alone in the killing of Fannyann but no other suspects have been arrested.
"While we understand that the Sierra Leonean judicial and penal systems are being rebuilt after eight years of civil war," said Cary Alan Johnson, IGLHRC's Senior Specialist for Africa. "There is no excuse for letting a potentially violent suspect, on trial for a brutal murder, escape from police custody."