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Momodou
Denmark
11737 Posts |
 Posted - 08 Mar 2007 : 13:52:56
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AT THE COURT MARTIAL
Lt. SANYANG'S WIFE AND CAPTAIN DARBOE TESTIFY
By Fabakary B. Ceesay and Annia Gaye
The wife of second Lieutenant Pharing Sanyang, Fatoumatta Mendy Sanyang and his co-accused Captain Yaya Darboe have on Thursday 1st March 2007, testified before the court martial at the Yundum barracks. The duo testified as defense witnesses.
Captain Darboe told the court that he remembered Seeing Lieutenant Sanyang at the state prison at Mile two on the 22nd March 2006. He said that he saw Lt Sanyang with blood on his head and a pain plaster attached to the left side of his neck. He said that he then asked Sanyang what had happened to him, and Sanyang told him that he was tortured by Malick Jatta and others. Captain Darboe indicated that he later saw Corporal Wharf who came to dress Mr. Sanyang's wounds. Darboe noted that he and Sanyang saw each other everyday because their cells are almost two metres from each other. He said that after Sanyang was dressed by the prison medic, he saw plasters on Mr. Sanyang's head but cannot remember how many plasters. He added that he knew Mr. Sanyang was taken to hospital to remove a broken tooth, because Sanyang has informed him about it.
During cross examination by the state counsel, E.O Fagbenle, Captain Darboe informed the court that he first saw Lieutenant Sanyang with a pain plaster on the neck and that after his wounds were dressed by the medical officer he saw plasters on his head. He added that he cannot estimate the size of the plaster.
Testimony of Sanyang's Wife
Mrs. Fatoumatta Mendy Sanyang has told the court that the first time she visited her husband at the Mile Two Central Prison; she was given a plastic bag by her husband. She said that she later opened the bag and found a military camouflage (uniform) in it with blood stains on it. She said that the blood covered from the shoulders of the uniform to downwards. She added that she also found a torn piece of cloth with blood stains, two plasters, dressing bandage with blood and a cloth doctors use to stop blood from oozing out of a wound. She indicated that she went to Banjul and handed over the plastic bag and its contents to Lawyer Lamin K. Mboge. She said that she told Mboge that she saw something which she wanted Mboge also to see. Mrs. Sanyang asserted that after some days, Mboge called her to inform her that his office was broken and that the plastic bag with its contents were stolen. She said that she later informed her husband about the stolen bag with his blood stained uniform. She pointed out that during her visit to her husband, she realised that he has lost weight and as he was talking to her, she noticed a missing tooth. She added that she observed his head and saw marks and as she said she asked him whether he has been beaten. She said he told her that what he had encountered was just that his death was yet to happen or else he would have been dead by now. She said he told her that he had been beaten at the NIA headquarters."
During cross examination by E.O Fagbenle, Mrs. Mendy Sanyang asserted that the scars she saw on her husband's head were new. She added that when her husband was going out, he did not have scars on him. She said that the time she visited him, the scars were already healed. When asked when she visited her husband, she said it was in May, but cannot remember the exact date. She said she did not take anything to her husband when she visited him but that she was given a plastic bag by her husband. Fagbenle asked what her husband was putting on when she met him. She replied that Mr. Sanyang was wearing the dress that she took to Mile Two Prisons prior to her permission to visit him. She stressed that she gave the dress to one Sunkaru, a prison officer in the presence of Lieutenant Colley.
Foroyaa Newspaper Burning Issue
Issue No. 027/2007, 7- 8 March, 2007
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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