The Gambia Court of Appeal has allowed counsel for condemned former National Intelligence Agency head Yankuba Badjie to amend his appeal against his murder conviction and death sentence.
The affidavit-in support stated that the original appeal was filed by Badjie himself on 20th July, 2022, while he was in prison custody in a bid to overturn his conviction and sentence in 2022 by Justice Kumba Sillah-Camara following a five-year trial.
After taking over the case, lawyers Christopher Mene and Pauline Bakuri filed an amended notice of appeal on behalf of Badjie arguing that it was necessary to substitute Badjie’s handwritten arguments with a more robust and professionally drafted appeal in the “overriding interest of justice”.
They outlined 13 primary grounds where the court erred.
These include relying on “mere hearsay” from a key prosecution witness who did not witness the alleged acts; the prosecution team was composed of lawyers from the United Democratic Party (UDP) the same party as the victims (Solo Sandeng) creating a fundamental unfairness that the trial judge dismissed; at one point, Yankuba Badjie was forced to represent himself in a capital murder trial after his legal team withdrew, which they argue is inherently unfair; Justice Sillah-Camara manifested bias and wrongly refused to recuse herself even after several of her rulings were set aside by the Court of Appeal; as a staff member of the NIA, Badjie’s actions were legally the acts of the agency itself; and that the prosecution failed to follow the statutory procedures required for NIA personnel under the law.
The lawyers averred that because of these reasons the verdict was “unreasonable and perverse” and not supported by the evidence.
They want a total reversal of the high court judgment and acquittal of Badjie on all counts, which include conspiracy to murder, forgery, and abduction.
The state did not object to the amendment and the Appellate Court deemed the new grounds properly filed.
