Testifying in a crowded courtroom yesterday marking the start of the trial, Ousainatou Jallow, a businesswoman, said the incident took place last year at her residence in Bakau.
She recalled: “On October 1, 2014, the deceased came to my room from his house and said to me, ‘you told me to leave this girl, but she is still following me’. He [Tijan] told me the accused was at the gate and I told him that I was going to tell the girl’s mother for her to leave my son.”
Ms Conteh is charged to court for allegedly stabbing to death, Tijan Bah, who fathered her child.
According Ousainatou Jallow, she told Tijan not to touch Ms Conteh when he told her that he was going to the barbing salon. But she said Tijan and Ms Conteh started fighting immediately he left her room.
She added: “I went to the scene where they were fighting, but Tijan tried to run away because I had warned him not to fight with her. However, he slipped and fell down. I held him, but I heard people saying she is coming. At that point, the accused attacked Tijan whom I was telling to leave her. However Tijan said to me, ‘you are telling me to leave her and she has stabbed me?’ That was the time I said to the accused, ‘I told my son to leave you and you are coming back to fight him? She told me that she only hit him with a stone. When I turned, I saw Tijan bleeding from his nose and mouth.”
At that point, she said the accused tried to run away but she caught her and took her to the Bakau Police Station. She said she later took her son to the police station before he was escorted to the Bakau Health Centre by police officers.
Ousainatou said her son was later taken to Banjul but the nurses did not inform her that her son was dead ‘because they knew I was her mother’. “When I went to Banjul, I saw my son in an ambulance covered in white sheet. That’s how I knew he was dead,” she added.
Trial will resume May 20 for cross-examination.
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