Mr. Jallow,

Your own rantings and ravings aside, you were merely asked to "shed light" on the accusation that you pilfered $3 million from the state and that the funds might have been returned to the state by a court order. However, your response left much to be desired. 

Here was a golden opportunity to set the record straight, but instead you went on the defensive. It seems to me you are only interested in discussing "political theory?" 

After reading your response, I went searching for an article I knew I had read somewhere and on logging on again, Saul Khan's response to you really said it all.  I don't really have much to add. Below is an article from NewAfrican, quite different from the one I mentioned yesterday. Calm down, read it and if you please, state your side of the story. That's all we are asking!

Regards,

Kabir.


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 NewAfrican
APRIL 1998 
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GAMBIA 
NEW AFRICAN MARKET  

Gambia regains missing millions

There is a new twist to our story of January 1997 on Gambia's missing millions. We revealed that $3m had been stashed away in a secret bank account in Switzerland. 

The man who banked the money was Captain Ebou Jallow, who had earlier resigned after falling out with the Gambian military junta before going into exile. 

He claimed that the money had been transferred by the Central Bank of Gambia to the Credit Lyonnnais Suisse bank in Geneva on the express instructions of the Head of State President Yahya Jammeh. Jallow had been a close confidant of Jammeh and said that he had a full power of attorney and had transferred the money on Jammeh's behalf. 

This was the point at issue when the case was brought to trial one year later in a Geneva court. The Swiss court found against Jallow and ruled that he should forfeit the $3m held in his account. It also ruled that the money should be paid back to the Gambia government in due course.

Jallow was ordered to pay all costs including 90,000 Swiss francs in court fees. 

The fate of the $3m has now finally been decided in favour of the Gambian government, but Gambian opposition leaders have pointed to other amounts which also mysteriously vanished into foreign bank accounts at about the same time.

Ouasinoe Darboe, the leader of the United Democratic Party, has frequently questioned a further sum of $21.7m which were held at Citibank (Switzerland) and Citibank (New York). Darboe alleges that these amounts were deposited by Jallow in accounts under the name of the then military ruler Yahya Jammeh.

The money had originally come from Taiwan and President Jammeh had sent Jallow to sign the loan agreement on behalf of the Republic of Gambia. The loan was released in two instalments. The second valued at $30m was sent to the Citibank in New York into a special development account.

At the same time the Governor of the Central Bank of Gambia was instructed to write to the Taiwanese government to confirm receipt of the loan funds. Yet it was clear that the funds had not arrived in the Gambia. 

A manager of Credit Lyonnais Suisse, Phillipe Bidawid later confirmed that he had discussed with Jallow how some of this money could be transferred into personal accounts of the military rulers.

Though the Geneva court has dealt with the $3m, the fate of the still greater amounts of Taiwanese loan money has still not been satisfactorily revealed.

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