By Bruce Asemota
The Gambia Court of Appeal presided over by Justices BVP Mahoney, S Wadda-Cissé and V Wright has dismissed an appeal by Muhammed Sambou upheld the conviction and sentence imposed on him by the trial court.
Sambou was charged, tried and convicted on two offences of rape and robbery and sentenced to 25 years imprisonment on each of the offences by high court judge Emmanuel Nkea in in 2012.
Sambou, a taxi driver from Serekunda appealed the high court judgment on the grounds that the judge misdirected himself when he admitted and relied on the medical report of the victim without the maker of the report testifying at the trial.
He said Justice Nkea misdirected himself when he held that he used actual violence when robbing the victim and that there was no evidence on record that he used threats or actual violence to rob the victim.
Sambou’s lawyer asserted that there were doubts in the evidence of the prosecution as a whole which should have been resolved in favour of his client
But the court held that the medical report qualifies both as a report under Section 40 of the Evidence Act and as a certificate under Section 45 of the same act since it bears characteristics of both a report and a certificate.
On the issue of corroboration, the court held that the slightest penetration is sufficient to constitute the act of sexual intercourse.
The court further held that there was evidence from the accused himself which corroborated the evidence of the victim on the offence of rape, where the victim stated that she was naked inside the appellant’s car when she was thrown out of the car.
The court also held that the appellant agreed that he beat the victim when she held on to the steering wheel of the vehicle.
The court held that Sambou have raped the victim in his taxi and it has been shown that force and violence were used in having sexual intercourse with the victim.
The court therefore held that the offences of rape and robbery were proved beyond reasonable doubt and that Sambou took the victim’s mobile phone and D50 with violence and force.
The appellate court said as a result of these, it has no reason to impugn the judgment of the trial court.
