By Omar Bah
The Minister of Justice, Dawda Jallow has said the government will open an investigation into reports of a Mile 2 inmate whose trial lasts for ten years.
The inmate communicated his ordeals to members of the National Assembly Human Rights Committee who visited the prisons on a fact-finding mission recently. Mile 2 is currently harbouring about 536 inmates of which 90% are young people who were arrested on murder and drug related offences. However, the majority of inmates who had the opportunity to meet with the NAMs have registered their disappointment about the judiciary which they said has failed to meet its mandate of delivering justice.
But responding to MPs’ questions on the particular inmate’s fate, Minister Jallow said: “That attracts my attention and I would investigate it together with my colleague minister of interior. That is serious because that means that the person was detained for eight years pretrial during Jammeh’s time and six years of this government without his trial being completed.
“If it is true that it happens then it is very serious. But we will look at that as we are currently compiling all pretrial detentions with the objective of making sure that pretrial detentions are not long because we have a system where if you happen to be acquitted, we have no compensation mechanisms to compensate you. So we are working towards ensuring that pretrial detentions remain as low as they could be,” Minister Jallow said.
