Mai Fatty Speaks About NIA Detention: 'I Was Treated Like a Suspect
Criminal'

The Independent (Banjul)
NEWS
December 29, 2003
Posted to the web December 29, 2003
Banjul

One of the lawyers in Honourable Baba Jobe's defense team in the criminal
case against him in the High Court has emerged from an overnight detention
by the National Intelligence Agency with claims that the NIA were already
connecting the Ousman Sillah shooting with a meeting in the embattled
politician's house "which otherwise never took place".

Mai Fatty, told The Independent a few minutes after he was released from
NIA detention in the early hours of Saturday afternoon that, his
interrogators wanted to know what he was doing in Honourable Jobe's house
in Kotu on Christmas Day (December 25) when a purportedly "clandestine"
meeting supposedly took place there, several hours before Ousman Sillah was
shot repeatedly in the head and stomach, prompting his evacuation to a
hospital in Dakar on Friday.

"As a lawyer, my relationship with Honourable Baba Jobe has been purely
professional. I am not afraid or ashamed to deal with him in my capacity as
his lawyer. I told the NIA that I have been in legal consultations with my
client and was on these same consultations with him on December 25. This
was based on his request. He had called me in the morning of December 25 to
go to his house and hold legal consultations with him.

What went on there between him and me was not a meeting as the NIA had
suspected but a consultation between a lawyer and his client. Of course
being a popular public figure, my client's house is frequented by visitors
and while I was there people were walking in and out of the place, among
them Buba Baldeh and Foday Lang Sarr. But again, what happened as far as I
witnessed was not a meeting. These people had gone there to greet my
client, who everybody knows as their friend" Lawyer Fatty explained.

According to Fatty although he had cooperated with his interrogators as
much as he could, the NIA had made deliberate attempts to "demoralise me
treating me like a suspect a criminal". He said aside from the fact that he
was denied access to a lawyer and means of communicating with his family,
his overall treatment in the hands of the NIA was "improper, illegal and
not in consonance with constitutional provisions relating to my rights as
an individual".

Fatty who has been told to report to the NIA headquarters for further
interrogations tomorrow (Tuesday), also attempted to douse speculations
that there was rancour within Baba Jobe's defense team, feeding theories
that Ousman Sillah was being made a target with the aim of clearing the way
for another lawyer to lead the defense of Honourable Jobe. "There is no
rancour. My arrest and detention will not intimidate or frustrate the
defense team, which I am proud to be part of as a lawyer. The theory
suggesting that we were being ripped apart is a figment of other people's
imagination. We are other people's suspects in the shooting of Ousman
Sillah but this theory is being peddled by quarters, which are not really
interested in investigating the incident. The incident mortifies me to the
core and leaves me wondering why a good, humble and likable man like Ousman
Sillah should be the target of sadistic gun-happy criminals. He is a lawyer
for whom there is widespread respect in the Bar and I hope he survives the
attack," he posited.

Mai Fatty explained that although his detention, connected to the shooting
incident and the Kotu meeting has exposed the "misleading" impression of
the authorities he is still confident that the Gambian justice system was
still capable of presiding over a fair hearing of the case against his
client, who he lamented is under constant surveillance since the charges
against him last month.

"When I thought that the NIA were ready with me, I told them that I was
happy to cooperate with them anytime and asked if I was free to go. They
told me that I was not free to go. So I put to them that then I was being
detained, which they denied. But that is what happened to me. I was not
free to go. But they still insisted that I was not detained. I was only
called for questioning. But I was only allowed to go on Saturday. My
complaint with the police is that up to eleven hours after the shooting, no
police was at the scene. No forensic tests were made.

But rather the police went around with their theories. This and the NIA
treatment of me were preposterous," he added.

On why anybody would want to see Ousman Sillah out of the way, Mai Fatty
said: "it mortifies me to the bone. Why should anybody want to harm or
eliminate Lawyer Sillah who is roundly respected and liked by all who knew
him. Ousman is my mentor and my guardian in the profession"

Asked what his reaction was to theories that Lawyer Sillah may have been
the victim of a possible violent vendetta by a member of the defense,
aiming to lead the rest of the team, the embattled lawyer said: "I think
that is absurd and rings of a complete farce. This is farcical. The defense
is as strong and seriously focused on the task of defending my client, as
everybody should know. Those reports are simply not true".


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