By Amadou Jadama
One Bakary Jarju from Kiang Massembeh was on Thursday arraigned before Magistrate K Baldeh of the Brusubi Court, accused of falsely presenting himself as a CID Officer delegated by Inspector General Seedy Muctar Touray, to obtain Thirty Thousand and Fifty Dalasis (D30,050) from one Amadou Baldeh.
Prosecutors alleged that the accused made a series of requests for money from Baldeh including on one occasion when he said he was sent by the IGP who wanted Baldeh to borrow him D6000 for fish money .
‘The accused Bakary Jarju within the period between 2024 and 2025 at Sukuta conducted himself as a police investigator posted at Sukuta Nema police station to one Amadou Baldeh, from whom he obtained the said D30,050 on the pretext that the Inspector General of Police delegated him,” prosecuting officer Inspector Jaiteh told the court.
Meanwhile, the first prosecution witness Amadou Baldeh, the victim of Jarju’s alleged crime, gave his testimony detailing his encounters with the accused.
According to Baldeh, who is in his eighties, the accused used to come to his compound and sometimes would even drink Attaya together with him.
”He identified himself to me as a CID Officer and I confided in him that my son had gone missing on the back way and I have not heard from him for ten years. I further told the accused that I needed money and I am selling a plot of land at Banyankang village for D450,000,” the witness told the court.
He said the accused Bakary Jarju later came to him to say that a friend of his called Bankally Camara in France, is interested to buy the land once he got here in The Gambia. “The accused later informed me about his friend’s arrival, ready to buy the said land. He even showed me videos of money purportedly belonging to his friend. However the accused later told me that his friend had returned to France without fulfilling his promise and agreement to buy the land,” the witness told the court.
He continued to tell the court that the accused came back to him to say that he has reported his friend Bankally to IGP Seedy Touray for failing to fulfill the agreement to buy the land and that the IGP has called our ambassador in France demanding the arrest of Bankally, and that has been done and Bankally has been brought to Morocco and the IGP has dispatched three PIU officers to bring him to The Gambia
“The accused further informed me that Bankally’s European wife has however came from France to pay the D450,000 agreed price of the land and the said amount was handed over to IGP Seedy Touray. He said I should produce an ID card before the IGP could give me the money. When I told the accused that I had no ID card but had applied for one which is being processed, he offered to get it faster for me at a cost of D2,600, which I gave him. When I asked him for a receipt he replied that it is with the IGP,” the witness told the court .
The witness further told the court that the accused Bakary Jarjue said IGP Touray wanted D6000 for those three PIU Officers who purportedly went to collect his friend Bankally from Morocco and the money should be sent to him, the accused, through his WAVE account..
“He went on to fool me gain that one Mariama Bah who works at one of the banks said I should pay D1400 before I can be able to withdraw my D450,000 from the IGP and also that the IGP wanted me to borrow him D1400 which the IGP would refund after a meeting he was attending.
Also the accused later came back to me, and said IGP Touray said he is going to the provinces and that he wanted me to borrow him D6000 for fish money which he would give to his wife until he comes back,” the witness said, still narrating what the accused allegedly fooled him to do.
According to the witness, he sent all these monies amounting to D30,050. to the WAVE account of the accused Bakary Jarju.
How Bakary was arrested
The witness revealed that six days before the Eid he called the accused who promised that after the Magrib prayers, he will come and pick him up to go to the IGP to get the D450K, which he failed.
“I then went to the Police Headquarters in Banjul myself to report this matter to the IGP but I met one officer called Malang Jarju to whom I explained everything and gave him my phone to verify all WAVE payments I made to the accused.
So Malang and one OC Musa Camara calculated all the payments and OC Camara escorted me to the CID Office to meet with Abdoulie Bah . There, OC Musa Camara called the accused on the phone and he said he was in Jarra Soma. So Camara then called one Traffic police officer in Soma who went to look for the accused, arrested and took him to Mansakonko police station from where he was transferred to the police headquarters in Banjul, and that was the time I knew that he is not a police officer, but a ‘criminal,’ ” the witness Amadou Baldeh told the court.
Jarju who now faces two counts of impersonating a public officer and obtaining money by false pretense, denies all the charges against him. He was however remanded in custody..
The trial continues.
