By Omar Bah
The leader of the Gambia Moral Congress and former interior minister, Mai Fatty has said that an investigation into the killing of Haruna Jatta was conducted by the Ecomig, GAF and that a report was also prepared by the Gambia Police Force and SIS.
He said the National Security Council also discussed the matter at the time and made recommendations.
Speaking in a Standard interview, Fatty said it is not acceptable for investigations of that nature to take too long.
“But that report would not be necessarily presented to me as the minister to act upon because Ecomig issue is not minister of interior issue. It was not directly under my jurisdiction,” he argued.
He added: “First and famous I would want to make few important statements, I was never the minister of defence. I got involved in the situation when the repercussion of what happened in Kanilai had a potential to threaten the security of this country and as a security minister, I had to do something to maintain stability.”
“That was my area of jurisdiction. Haruna Jatta was not killed by forces under my command. It is purely an Ecomig issue. An investigation was conducted and certainly a report was also prepared by the Gambia Police Force and SIS. And I can remember recommendations were made but that report would not be necessarily presented to me as the minister to act upon,” he explained.
Fatty said when the incident happened he was in Liberia but he had to cut short his trip to address the situation. “When I arrived, I had briefings with my colleagues after that, I went straight to GRTS in order to present government’s position. What I presented there was the intelligence I was provided with.”
“As a security minister, I act on intelligence… And what I said at the time was the intelligence made available to me by relevant agents of state. I had no reason at the time to doubt. Because I had no other information to contradict that, so I acted based on information I received,” he stated.
He said the investigation into the Kanilai shootings should come out.
