By Tabora Bojang
Former prisons boss David Colley has been accused of involvement in the death of former APRC kingpin Baba Jobe, who was allegedly suffocated in his hospital bed by the Junglers, long after his prison term ended. Last year one of the hit men Omar Oya Jallow confessed he was among a team who killed Jobe in his hospital bed.
At yesterday’s TRRC hearing, lead counsel Essa Faal read a statement by the former DG David Colley’s orderly one Lamin Sanneh, who said he was deployed by David to the hospital to lead the way for Jammeh’s hitmen.
In the statement, Sanneh said he was surprised that he was strangely posted to the hospital on the instructions of David Colley in a telephone conversation.
He further alleged that Colley did so knowing Baba Jobe was the only prisoner admitted at the hospital.
According to him, the deployment doubted him very well because he felt that this was a shift job and he was having different thoughts about it.“I graciously left for the hospital and found two prison officers, one of them inspector Ismaila and I took over from him. I later wondered whether I was being sacrificed by DG Colley for Baba Jobe to escape,” Sanneh said in his statement.
Sanneh’s statement continued: “I was with Baba Jobe in his private block up to around 11pm after the final check-up by the doctor. He told me there were mosquitoes in the room and he wanted to spray it. I sprayed with him and later went inside. Baba went to bed and covered himself. Not long after my phone rang and I noticed it was David Colley’s voice asking me to let those coming for Baba Jobe to get into the room. I encountered a group of almost seven men who asked where Baba Jobe was. I told them he is sleeping and among them I recognized one Fulaman called Oya Jallow because he lived with us at Hamza Barracks. They all went in except one person who was monitoring me. After some time, they left and I went into the room and noticed that the position of Baba was changed and I found him tilted flat on his back. I waited till the doctor came in the morning. I asked what happened but he did not utter a word. Baba was taken to the mortuary and I returned to the prison.”
Sanneh said since the infamous incident nine years ago, Colley has never uttered or mentioned it, pretending as if nothing happened.
After reading this statement to David Colley who was testifying at the Commission yesterday, Essa Faal put it to him that: “You are a murderer and you participated in the killing of Baba Jobe. You sent your orderly to be the sole guard as part of your sinister plan to kill him.”
But David Colley whose marathon testimony was marred by contradiction denied any wrongdoing.
According to the former prisons chief, Sanneh was picked because he trusted him, adding that there was no hidden objective behind his deployment to the hospital.
“I trusted him that was why but I never asked him to allow the Junglers to kill Baba Jobe,” Colley said.
