Did You Know...

Yesterday, I posted the indictment of Mahamu D. Kanneh, the accused Liberian immigrant child molester let off because of a lack of a translator. I noted that there were nine counts against him involving not one, but two girls. Both are nieces of Kanneh. As other media outlets have reported, one of those girls was seven years old. What I have not seen noted elsewhere is the age of the other child.

She was one and half years old.

I asked the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office for the charging papers in the case.

Here’s the statement of probable cause:

Click on the thumbnails for full-size.

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The Washington Post, which first blew the whistle on the case, follows up on the prosecutor’s appeal of the case dismissal:

Prosecutors in Montgomery County said yesterday that they intend to ask an appellate court to overturn a judge’s dismissal of a case against a Liberian immigrant charged with raping a young girl. The judge had ruled that repeated delays caused by the court’s failure to find an interpreter fluent in the accused man’s native dialect had violated his right to a speedy trial.

Mahamu D. Kanneh was arrested in August 2004 after witnesses told police he raped and repeatedly molested a 7-year-old relative. The case was dismissed last week, nearly three years later, by Circuit Court Judge Katherine D. Savage.

Montgomery County State’s Attorney John J. McCarthy said in a statement yesterday that the judge’s ruling should be overturned. “While the Defendant is presumed innocent, the charges are serious, and a trial on the merits of this case is what we hope to achieve through this appeal,” McCarthy said.

“The Court, under the extraordinary circumstances of this case, attempted multiple times to satisfy its obligations. The bottom line is that any delays caused by the attempt to find an appropriate and qualified interpreter is not attributable to the prosecution . . . and should not serve as the basis for dismissing the charges against the Defendant,” the statement said.

In her ruling July 17, Savage didn’t assign blame for the delay.