The criminal trial of Lawyer L.K. Mboge continued yesterday at the Banjul Magistrates’ Court before acting-Principal Magistrate Taiwo Alagba.
Mboge is being tried on charges of making false documents without authority, false swearing, and uttering false documents,
Testifying under cross-examination, the fourth prosecution witness, Saikou Barrow, told the court that it was LK Mboge who wrote the letter and thumb printed it, or gave it to somebody to thumb print it , but it was not thumbprinted by his father.
He told the court that he could not remember talking to the lawyer or his clerk on the phone on 17 May 2010.
Told by L.K. Mboge that he was misleading the court, the witness in response stated that L.K. Mboge had never told him anything about exhibit A.
Lawyer Mboge again put it to him that his father had authorised him to do anything possible to get back the land.
The witness in response told the court that his father told him to follow up, adding that they asked the accused to withdraw exhibit A, because they have their compound documents, and they did not want to go to court.
The witness denied that his father was angry with him, instead his father was angry with the accused person, he told the court.
He further denied that his father told him to allow the accused person to continue with the motion because they could not get back their land without going to court.
Mboge told the witness that he told the court that he was forced by his father to withdraw the case. “Did he beat you?” he asked, and the witness replied in the negative.
He added that he was not dragged from the police station to the office of lawyer Tambedou, but that he did not want to disobey his father and other elderly people, because he respected them.
The witness further adduced that he could remember when the accused person was making a statement at the police station, and when asked the accused admitted thumb printing the document.
The case at that juncture was adjourned till 19 May 2011.
