Devil’s Belly Lies!” Capitol Fire Suspect Says Gov’t Tried to Bribe Him $200K to Frame Rep Koffa

Monrovia, Liberia: In the ongoing high-level arson case, Capitol Building fire suspect John Nyanti has alleged that top-level government operatives offered him a staggering US$200,000 and orchestrated surveillance detainment in exchange for fabricated testimony against former Speaker of the House, Cllr. J. Fonati Koffa, further deepening the already volatile political implications of the December 18, 2024, Capitol attack investigation.

                                                 By: Abraham Sylvester Panto 

Suspect Nyanti’s assertion, delivered while under police escort and now in state custody, appears to validate earlier claims made by his family at the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) Headquarters on Tuesday, June 17, 2025, where they accused government officials of conducting clandestine negotiations at Lifestyle Hotel in Paynesville to silence Nyanti with a $50,000 bribe and an international trip to Europe.

According to Suspect Nyanti, who resurfaced under controversial circumstances after fleeing the country through the Lugatuo Border into Ivory Coast in the wake of the arson incident, he was in a secret meeting on June 6, 2025, with individuals he described as high-ranking security officials, who allegedly pressured him to sign pre-drafted confessions implicating former Speaker Koffa in exchange for financial and political protection.

Declaring, “It’s a lie from the belly of the devil,” Nyanti vehemently dismissed the legitimacy of the state’s handling of the case, casting a shadow over the integrity of the judicial process and suggesting a systemic misuse of public power to weaponize criminal charges for political vendettas.

Authorities have since apprehended Suspect Nyanti on Wednesday, June 18, 2025, and he has been transferred to the Monrovia City Court to face formal charges related to the Capitol Building fire, an incident that symbolized one of the gravest attacks on Liberian democracy in recent history and has since triggered a complex security and political fallout implicating both public and private actors.

It can be recalled that on June 6, 2025, the Liberia National Police investigated and charged former Speaker Fonati Koffa, along with Representatives Dixon Siebo, Jacob Debe, Abu Kamara, and Prescilla Cooper, over the Capitol Building arson that caused over US$8 million in damage.