By Amadou Jadama
The criminal trial of Ya-Kumba Jaiteh Monday took a new twist as defence insisted that the cannabis allegedly confiscated from her brother had in fact come from a narcotics officer.
Looking unperturbed in a dock alongside her father, Ya-Kumba’s lawyer Yankuba Darboe on Monday subjected Ebrima Fadera, a narcotics officer attached to Serekunda Police Station, to gruelling cross-examinations after he alleged that he was the one who discovered the cannabis in Ya-Kumba’s brother’s pocket.
Lawyer Darboe, continuing his cross-examinations, put it to Fadera that the drug was in fact seized at Queens Head Bar and not the house of his clients. However, the witness said the drug was seized somewhere around Queen’s Head and it was later realized that the spot was not far from Ya-Kumba’s house.
“You said you went to Queen’s Head Bar,” Darboe put to witness Fadera to which he responded in the affirmative. He, in response to further quizzing, disclosed that the team of officers had gone to different places but the Queen’s Head was the last port of call.
“When our vehicle arrived, my colleagues and myself alighted. We saw a man sitting on a motor bike and we saw him our warrant cards,” narrated the witness, adding that the patrol vehicle was parked 20 to 30 metres from where the suspect was sitting. The witness adduced that he later realized the gate where the suspect was sitting was opposite that of the house where Ya-Kumba lives.
Counsel Darboe further put to him that they found the suspect at Queens Head Bar.
The trial continues.
