State Brushes Aside Judge's Verdict

The Independent (Banjul)
NEWS
August 2, 2004
Posted to the web August 3, 2004

By Ebrima Sillah & Ahmed Carayol
Banjul

Barely six hours after a High Court Judge freed three civilians for want of
evidence over charges of treason and conspiracy to commit treason, state
security agents rearrested them for arbitrary reasons suggesting profound
disaffection with the verdict.

Momodou Dumo Sarho, Basirou Barrow and Ebrima Yarbo who were held
incommunicado for four years were Friday, acquitted and discharged by
Justice Ahmed Belgore for lack of convincing evidence on six counts of
treason, conspiracy to commit treason and concealing information on a
treasonable act. However a curious twist to the tale of the trial ensued
just six hours after, Sarho, Barrow and Yarbo had packed out of their Mile
Two Prison cells to their respective homes. Four plain-clothes security
agents apprehended Dumo Sarho just after dusk while he was in the company
of members of their immediate families and friends who had initially
provoked a standoff with the arresting officers by refusing to let them go.
Basirou Barrow was met in his home in Banjul and whisked away despite the
angry protestations of his family and friends. However, in yet another
curious twist to the same story Ebrima Yarbo was confirmed not to have
suffered re-arrest unlike his co-accused who are still unaccounted for as
family members and friends launched separate search parties Saturday with a
view to tracing and determining where the two long-standing political
prisoners were being held.

Arresting officers who initially refused to identify themselves demanded to
go with Dumo Sarho but family members and friends insisted that he was not
going anywhere. A protracted push and pull ensued with the officers who
feeling apparently outnumbered, called for reinforcements.

While the standoff lasted, Dumo's lawyer, Ousainou Darboe was promptly
briefed about the situation through telephone and he reportedly advised
Dumo's family that if his client was going to be physically harmed, then
they should accompany him to the police station. Up to the time of putting
these details into writing neither Dumo nor Barrow had been reported
released nor were any plausible reasons given for their arrest.

Meanwhile, according to friends of Dumo's, they had made frantic but futile
searches for him as the National Intelligence Agency and Police
Headquarters profusely denied knowledge of his whereabouts. A man who
described himself as a close friend of Mr. Sarho said their re-arrest and
subsequent disappearance may be partially explained by the reluctance of
the accused to return to Mile Two Prisons to formally sign out of custody.
He said after they were discharged, the three men saw little reason to
return to the prisons, preferring instead to walk immediately to freedom,
despite the advise of some of their relatives, friends and sympathisers who
saw it as satisfying "a mere formality" that wouldn't have lasted for more
than one hour. "If this is the reason for them being taken back into
custody, then it shows the knack for pettiness on the part of the
authorities, who should instead apologise and even compensate the three men
for holding them for more than four years without any evidence to show for
it. The court has decided their innocence beyond doubt and if democracy and
the rule of law are respected in this country, they should be set free
without condition" one of Dumo's most trusted contemporaries said.

Family members who described the government's action as a blithely
deliberate disregard for the rule of law, said there is no doubt as to
their course of action once the court has ruled in favour of the co-
accused. They said they would without doubt file a petition against the
state for Dumo's long-running detention and his re-arrest for a supposed
offense, which the courts have thrown out the window.

One of Dumo's best friends, who stayed for several years with him in
Sweden, explained that following Dumo's release he had called the
detainee's wife (who flew in from Sweden a day before the judgment) to make
arrangements for what was intended as a quiet dinner with Mr. Sarho. He
said he was waiting for the appointed time when later he was informed that
four men in plain clothes had re-arrested Dumo.

He described the government's apparent determination to maintain Dumo Sarho
in custody even after the court had cleared him of any wrongdoing, as
betraying the extent to which they can remorselessly use what he
called "dirty tactics" to override the informed decisions of a law court.

Friday's judgment

On Friday, High Court Judge, Justice Ahmed Belgore acquitted and discharged
Dumo Sarho, Ebrima Yarbo and Ebrima Barrow on all six counts suggesting
treason.

Delivering his three-and-half-hour judgment, Justice Belgore said it is an
acceptable principle in every criminal trial that the prosecution must
prove its case beyond reasonable doubt, which in this case was far from it.
Justice Belgore said although the charges against the accused persons were
indeed very serious and called for the death penalty life imprisonment, an
incontrovertible case had never been established against them by the
prosecution. "For somebody to be found guilty of treason or conspiracy to
commit treason, an act has to be committed or about to be committed. And
since this was not proven in court, I can only but acquit and discharge the
accused" Belgore argued.

Francisco Caso branded an irredeemable liar

Justice Belgore said the evidence of the chief prosecution witness,
Francisco case, an Italian, was inconsistent, full of contradictions and
could not be relied upon in any credible court of law. Justice Belgore
branded Caso an irredeemable liar who during the trial showed that he was
not a "witness of truth", but instead used deception to entrench himself in
the corridors of power.

"He has a purely selfish agenda," the judge added.

Justice Belgore said Caso's evidence in court were completely
contradictory. And when confronted on this by the defence, Caso, according
to the judge said he could neither read nor write in English and that his
statement to the NIA was written for him by his wife.

However, unwittingly proving his contradiction at one stage of the trial,
Caso had told the court that he read the death of his one time business
partner Toni Cartoni in the Daily Observer.

Although Caso said he was a member of the Italian army for three years, he
could still not differentiate between the ranks of major and lieutenant.
Caso could not even remember his rank in the army and when he was enrolled
therein. For this reason Justice Belgore said no serious tribunal could
rely on such evidence to make a conviction and therefore saw no reason why
the co-accused should be kept in prolonged custody, promptly acquitting and
discharging them.

Accused claimed torture

Meanwhile in the course of the trial one of the accused persons claimed he
was seriously tortured when in detention. Ebrima Barrow even produced a
broken tooth and torn underwear to prove his claim of being tortured.

He also showed laceration marks on his back, which he said, were as a
result of the torture he went through. The judge said the fact that
Barrow's statement had taken after 72 hours when he should have been
charged and brought before a court of law, proved that the statement was
not recorded under lawful environment. He said he found Barrow to be a
witness of truth because he never second-guessed when he gave evidence.

Belgore said Barrow's broken tooth was not self-inflicted. Justice Belgore
also condemned the act of the state security officers by transferring
Ebrima Barrow from his Mile Two Prison cell to the NIA headquarters where
he underwent further interrogation. According to Belgore this was against
state policy and good conduct. He said the fact that Barrow's statement was
recorded in that highly suspect environment, renders it non-voluntary.

He called on the state to always uphold the constitutional and human rights
of those in their custody.

Missing links

The judge said he could not understand why important names that Caso in his
statement mentioned like Sheriff Mustapha Dibba and Abdoulie Kujabi were
not called to testify on their meeting with the Italian. The judge also
wondered why the state failed to bring in the people who investigated the
case as witnesses because the police detective who testified during the
trial could not remember the people who investigated the case.

During the trial Caso told the court that one of the accused persons had
told him that he had weapons stock-piled in a village five miles away from
Kanilai, the birth place of the president. But no investigation was made to
locate the village and the judge wondered why this was not done because
according to him, weapons were going to be very useful for the success or
otherwise of an alleged coup. For this reason, Justice Belgore said it was
a monstrous attempt on the side of the witnesses to mislead the court and
therefore acquitted and discharged the three accused persons.

Wild Celebrations In The Court Room

And just as the judge delivered the not-guilty verdict friends and family
members of the accused started hugging each other in wild celebration. Some
of them started chanting "Long live Belgore; justice to the poor; restore
Gambia's long cherished principles of respect for human and people's
rights".

Lawyers for the accused persons Mai Fatty and Ousman Darboe commended the
judge for standing by natural justice. Mai Fatty went further to say "today
is victory for the oppressed; today the prosecution has a lot to be ashamed
of because you cannot charge people with capital punishment when you don't
have evidence; today is when these innocent people have to go home with
their heads held high; law enforcement has to take stock and realise that
the longest day must come to an end".



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