Four Prison Officers Granted Bail

The Daily Observer (Banjul)

Fatou Sowe

17 June 2011

Magistrate Taiwo Ade Alagbe, the acting principal magistrate at the Banjul Magistrates Court, on Thursday granted bail to Abdoulie Bojang, Solo Manga, Buba Badjie and Bakary Jammeh all prison officers to the sum of D300, 000 with one Gambian surety.

It would be recalled that the application for the officers to be granted bail was made earlier by the defence counsel for the first to third accused persons, Lawyer C. Gaye-Coker. The court granted the application after she renewed it at the last sitting.

When the case was called, State counsel, Mam N. Jobe appeared for the state and she called her first witness, Omar Drammeh, an NDEA officer. The witness told the court that he recognised the accused persons as he obtained a cautionary statement from Bakary Jammeh the fourth accused at the NDEA Kanifing station.

Pw1 further told the court that after he received the instructions to obtain a cautionary statement from the said accused, he invited an independent witness, and read the cautionary words to the accused after which the 4th accused gave him his statement in Mandinka and he (PW1) recorded it in English.

According to him the accused thumb printed the said statement and he (PW1) and the independent witness signed. Pw1 identified the statement and the state counsel applied to tender it in evidence as exhibit. The statement was admitted and marked as Exhibit A.

The case was then adjourned to 29th June 2011 for cross-examination.

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