3 August 2020 – Lunsar, Sierra Leone and London, UK: SL Mining Limited (“SL Mining” or the “Company”), a wholly owned subsidiary of Gerald International Limited (“Gerald”) headquartered in the UK, confirms that the employees reported on 16 May 2020 as having been arrested on 13 May 2020, and those arrested on 3 June and 28 June 2020, jailed and then bailed have all now been released without any charges being brought and the cases against them have been closed.

On 24 July 2020, the Government of Sierra Leone (the “Government”) closed the cases concerning the arrested SL Mining employees without any charges being brought. The bail conditions were removed, and SL Mining’s employees were permitted to return to the Marampa mine site.

SL Mining is grateful to the Government for taking these latest steps as the arrests and detention of SL Mining’s employees should never have happened and this is now recognised by the Government in closing the cases.

We note the recent changes taking place in Government and welcome this as a positive opportunity to work towards achieving a restart of exports and bringing our employees back to work.  SL Mining and Gerald remain fully committed to Marampa, the surrounding community, and Sierra Leone as a whole, and look forward to working to bring the Marampa mine back to production, which will create thousands of local jobs in the surrounding community.

For information visit: https://marampamines.com

Press enquiries: media@slmining.sl ; media@gerald.com