By Demba Ali Jawo
After the embarrassing situation that the government of the Gambia has found itself in with regard to the latest episode of the Sukuta Traffic Light murder case, it is now quite obvious that Dawda Jallow’s position as Attorney General and Minister of Justice is no longer tenable. He should either resign or be sacked by President Adama Barrow for incompetence.
It is quite hard to imagine that under the current dispensation, an Attorney General and Minister of Justice would so blatantly undermine the credibility of the high court by ignoring its decision and going ahead to re-arrest someone acquitted and discharged by the court after an exhaustive trial. Even the decision to withdraw the government’s so-called “Motion Ex-Parte seeking an interim stay of execution of the bail order pending the hearing and final determination of the Appeal filed against the Judgment of acquittal” less than 24 hours after it was submitted, is a clear indication of a failure of judgment on his part.
It is indeed hard to understand how the entire state judicial and security apparatus seems to have bungled up the case involving the alleged perpetrator of the murder of the two policemen, Ousainou Bojang and his sister Amie Bojang as his alleged co-conspirator. We were all witnesses to the joint press briefing held by heads of the different security agencies shortly after Ousainou’s arrest, with various speakers coming up with different scenarios trying to connect the suspect to the murder but hardly presenting any water-tight evidence to prove their case. Everyone had expected the investigators to provide forensic evidence from the alleged murder weapon or other evidence connecting the case to the suspect, but hardly any of that was ever produced. Therefore, even with the appeal against the judgment, it is hard to see a different outcome with the same evidence.
The verdict was certainly not a surprise to many people keenly following the case. Apart from an apparent failure of the prosecution to produce concrete evidence against the accused, we also saw that during the trial, some of the state witnesses did not sound quite credible. A good case in point was Mama Jabbie, the Senegalese lady who was alleged to have apprehended Ousainou Bojang while he was trying to “escape” to the Casamance. While she was said to have benefitted from a one million Dalasi compensation offered to anyone with information leading to the arrest of the perpetrator, but some people felt that she was simply using her close personal relationship with the First Family to reap such benefits rather than anything she deserved. However, now that the accused has been set free, let’s hope that she would refund that amount.
Another question being asked by everyone is what next happens to the case. We obviously expect the authorities to relaunch another thorough investigation of the case with a view to apprehending the real killer(s) of the two policemen and the wounding of their colleague. Someone definitely has to be held responsible for the crime.
