Ensa Badjie's robbery trial resumes

The robbery trial involving former Inspector General of Police Ensa Badjie and Chief Superintendent of Prisons, Ali Cessay, resumed yesterday at the special criminal court presided over by Justice Ikpala.

Ensa Badjie and Ali Ceesay were earlier indicted by state prosecutors on various counts ranging from conspiracy to commit a felony, robbery with violence, receiving stolen property, aiding and abetting, conspiracy to commit misdemeanour, aiding prisoner to escape, official corruption, conspiracy to defeat justice and interference with witnesses, deceiving witnesses, offences relating to judicial proceeding, and using criminal charms, among others. Both denied the charges.

When the trial resumed, the Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, M. Abdullahi, told the court that he did not know why the defence counsel was not in court, and said, in the interest of justice, he would apply for a stand down of the case.

The presiding judge then asked the first accused, Ensa Badjie, the whereabouts of his counsel and Badjie said he last saw his counsel during one of his trials.

Badjie then asked the court to grant him an adjournment, to enable his counsel to be present.

The trial judge, however, granted the prosecution's application, and the case was stood down for 30 minutes. Both the defence counsel and state prosecutor were present in court, when the case was recalled.

The state witness, Dodou Janneh, alias Dou Boy, who was to continue his testimony as the prosecution's nineth witness in the trial, then informed the court that he was not feeling well enough to give evidence.

At this stage, the prosecution applied for an adjournment, and the defence counsel, Borry Touray, did not object to the application.

The case was then adjourned to the 25th of October 2010 for continuation.

Readers would recall that nine witnesses have so far testified in the case, mostly convicts serving jail terms at the state central prison. The 9th witness, Dodou Janneh, alias Dou Boy, is a murder convict serving a death sentence.

The witnesses so far have included Soriba Condeh, the principal witness, who is said to be a convict serving a jail term in prison, Pateh Jallow, the former deputy chief of the National Drug Enforcement Agency (NDEA), Muhammed Sillah, a police officer, Muhammed Darboe, a convict, Tony, Fatou Mendy, and Amadou Jallow, also a convict.