High court Judge, Abdullahi Mikailu who was expected to rule whether the commissioner-general of Gambia Revenue Authority (GRA) should produce receipts of the GRA bank account or not said, “The court has received a letter from GRA that the witness is still sick.”
Justice Mikailu said this when the lawyer for the accused, Borry Touray said he spoke to the director of public prosecution, Saleh Barkun who told him that he was ‘indisposed’. Mr Trawally was announced ‘hospitalised’ by state prosecutor, Aji Amie Ceesay on the last adjourned date. He is the state’s first witness in the trial of former Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Lamin Jobarteh.
Mr Jobarteh is already serving a two-year jail term after being convicted by the Special Criminal Court Division of the high court. He is now standing trial on three counts of false information and economic crime.
He is accused of recklessly causing monetary loss to GRA by constituting a taskforce which re-assessed and reviewed downward the tax liability of several tax defaulters as found by the Tax Commission.
State prosecutors charged Mr Jobarteh with lying to the Office of the President that over D200 million had been recovered from the tax defaulters and deposited into the GRA account at Guaranty Trust Bank. He denied any wrong doing. The case will resume on July 2.
By Binta Bah
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