The state prosecutor, AM Yusuph, in the murder case before Justice Amadi of the Special Criminal Court in Banjul, involving the Jappineh Marabout, Alajie Karamo Njie, yesterday said the court did nothing in the case since mid-January to March.
When the case was called, AM Yusuph informed the court that PW1 was absent when he was supposed to be cross-examined, and PW2 was then called to testify.
Under cross-examination PW1, Mandu Sanneh, said he did not visit the scene, agreeing that he took the photograph of the deceased at the mortuary at the Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital in Banjul.
He said he knew that a postmortem was conducted on the body of the deceased, and that he did not have anything to do with the accused in his official capacity.
After the cross-examination, the trial judge, Justice Amadi, asked state counsel AM Yusuph to call his witness to testify.
However, AM Yusuph said he thought counsel’s cross-examination was going to take long, which was why he did not call another witness to come.
Justice Amadi then said cross-examination depended on the facts of the case, so he should not think or say he knew how counsel Gomez would conduct his cross-examination.
The matter was a murder case and the accused has been kept in prison, and they did not even know whether he would be freed or not, he said.
AM Yusuph insisted that the witness he was about to call was going to come all the way from the provinces ,and the case was not proceeding since mid January to March, which was not the fault of the prosecution.
Defence counsel E.A. Gomez said it was unfortunate that they were in such circumstances, and all the witness did was to take the pictures of the corpse.
He said they should not overlook the fundamental rights of the accused as enshrined in section 24 of the constitution, which should be considered by the court.
On the issue of the case not proceeding since mid-January, counsel said the trial judge was presiding over the court martial.
