Liberia: Ex-VP's Lawyers Allege Constitutional Breaches in Arrest, Detention

MONROVIA – When the Monrovia City Court issued a writ on August 25, 2026, commanding police to arrest the living bodies of Jewel Howard-Taylor, it set in motion one of the most consequential criminal cases against a former senior official in Liberias recent history. A month later, the former Vice President sits under house arrest, her bail application denied, her phones and computers seized, and her lawyers argue that nearly every step the State has taken against her has run afoul of the Constitution. In a formal statement, her legal team lists what it calls a cumulative constitutional injury: ten separate points at which, they contend, Mrs. Howard-Taylors liberty was taken or restricted without full regard to the safeguards in Article 21 of the 1986 Constitution. The allegations against her remain unproven, and so do her lawyers claims. Both will ultimately be tested in court. WHAT THE STATE ALLEGES The writ of arrest, obtained by FrontPageAfrica, lays out the governments case in stark terms. According to the writ, businessman Sheik Bashiru Kante brought two foreign nationals, Taras Zadereiko, alias Tony, and Mihovil Vrovac, alias Michael, to Liberia in 2021, where they allegedly conspired to import and export cocaine through Liberia to Europe. The State claims the group set out to recruit top government officials to protect the scheme, and that in 2022 Kante introduced the two men to Mrs. Howard-Taylor, then Vice President. The writ alleges that in early 2022 she met the men at her Sophie residence in Congo Town, and that they invited her to Dubai to meet Croatian national Nikola Ivancic, whom the government describes as a drug kingpin and ringleader of the cartel. There, prosecutors claim, a meeting was held about using Liberia as a transit point for cocaine, and she agreed. The State further alleges she received US$45,000 from Ivancic in Dubai for shopping, later requested and received US$75,000 from the cartel through Kante, and subsequently received a further US$15,000. She is charged under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act of 2023, the New Penal Law and the AML-CFT Act of 2021, with offenses including importation and exportation of controlled drugs, illicit trafficking, criminal conspiracy, criminal facilitation and criminal solicitation. THE DEFENSES TEN COUNTS Her lawyers do not address the merits of those allegations in their statement. Instead, they focus on process, and they list ten grievances: 1. Arrest without presentation of a writ of arrest 2. No demonstrated completed investigation to justify the initial deprivation of liberty 3. Incarceration beyond 48 hours 4. Failure to formally charge and present her before a court within 48 hours 5. Absence of an indictment at the relevant stage 6. Incarceration at the Monrovia Central Prison while unconvicted 7. Treatment inconsistent with the distinction between an accused and a convicted prisoner 8. House arrest and substantial restrictions on movement 9. Continued pretrial deprivation of liberty 10. Denial of bail despite the passage of several years since the alleged conduct An accusation is not a conviction, the statement declares. At the center of the defense argument is Article 21 of the Constitution, which requires that anyone arrested be formally charged and presented before a court of competent jurisdiction within 48 hours. The legal team contends the records show Mrs. Howard-Taylor was held beyond that window before the required judicial process was completed. If that chronology holds up, it would be among the most straightforward constitutional questions in the case: the 48-hour rule is not discretionary. The lawyers are careful to concede the States right to investigate. The issue is not whether the State has authority to investigate alleged criminal conduct. It does, the statement says. The issue is whether that authority was exercised within the constitutional limits. WHILE UNDERGOING INVESTIGATION The defenses second count, that no completed invest