Justice
Kumba Sillah-Camara of the High Court in Banjul yesterday adjourned the
criminal trial involving the state against the former officials of the National
Intelligence Agency until 29 June 2017.
The
judge’s decision came after the prosecution and the defence teams reached a
compromised that the aforementioned date was suitable for the hearing of the
case while awaiting certain developments regarding the 1st accused person.
The
nine accused persons are Yankuba Badjie, Loiuse Richards Leese Gomez, Saihou
Omar Jeng, Babucarr Sallah, Yusupha Jammeh, Haruna Susso, Tamba Mansary, Lamin
Darboe and Lamin Lang Sanyang.
They
are charged with multiple offences of conspiracy to murder, murder, assault
causing actual bodily harm, forgery, making false documents among others.
It
would be recalled that the state was represented by officials from the Attorney
General’s Chambers and called two witnesses but when the state opted to hire
private lawyers to take over the prosecution of the case, the defence took
objection to their representation.
This
prompted the court to order that briefs be filed by the parties, whilst some
defence counsel had declared that they are not opposing the representation of
the private lawyers for the state.
During
yesterday sitting, lawyer C.E. Mene, defence counsel for the 1st accused,
Yankuba Badjie, informed the court that some development to the pending matter
before the court may necessitate a very short adjournment to the application.
He
argued that the application was prompted by his client to be subjected to
persecution instead of prosecution.
He
further argued that they have engaged the prosecution with a view to having
some common ground, adding that he was pleased to inform the court that there
was a good prospect.
Lawyer
Mene disclosed that there are certain developments regarding his client which
he would not want to divulge now.
“We
don’t want to trouble the waters which we will have to drink,” he remarked
He
craved the court indulgence to grant a short adjournment to the defence to
enable them have a common ground.
The
lead counsel for the prosecution, lawyer A.A.B. Gaye, informed the court that
he was not objecting to the defence application for a short adjournment.
Justice
Kumba Sillah-Camara then adjourned the matter until 29 June 2017.
