By Mamadou Dem Mr. Amadou Samba, a lawyer by Profession, and a businessman yesterday testified in the case of Lang Conteh, ex Managing Director of Kanilai Family Farm. Testifying as the sixth Prosecution witness before Principal Magistrate Dawda Jallow Mr. Samba, told the Banjul Magistrates’ Court that he handed over D450, 000.00 to the accused person. According to him, sometime in October 2012, he received the said sum of money from the President to hand it over to the accused for the purchase of office furniture. “I remember handing over the said amount to Mr. Lang Conteh,” said Mr. Samba. When asked by the prosecuting officer, Sub-Inspector Alpha Badjie where those furniture were to be taken, the witness responded that they were supposed to be taken to Kanilai Family Farm office. Under cross examination, attorney for Lang Conteh, Lamin Mboge asked: “Do you know if the accused has purchased those furniture?” “I wouldn’t know.” At that juncture, counsel referred the witness to exhibit B, a police investigative report and asked him whether he is aware that the accused bought the furniture at a tune of D142,000.00 (one hundred and forty-two thousand dalasis). “As far as I know, I handed over the sum of D450,000.00,” Samba responded. “But it is correct that the accused person came to you with receipts and invoices after purchasing the equipment?” Mboge enquired. “I cannot remember that. What I can remember is that I handed over D450,000.00 to him,” said the witness. He added that the letter on page 34 of the police report emanated from the Office of the President and was addressed to Lang Conteh. When asked to read the content of that letter by the defence, Mr. Samba insisted and said “I am not the author of the letter.” “I am putting it to you that the accused has submitted an updated account as to how he spent the D450, 000.00 to his Excellency, the President which was acknowledged on page 34 of the police report,” Mboge expounded. “It has no relevance in my evidence,” Samba insisted. Finally, the defence put it to the witness that he doesn’t know how the accused person spent the D450, 000.00. “I wouldn’t know,” admitted the witness. At that stage, Sub-Inspector Badjie applied for adjournment to enable him call his final witness. Consequently, the matter was adjourned to February 24th for continuation of hearing. Readers would recall that the prosecution alleged that Mr. Conteh sometime in 2012 and 2013 respectively, in the city of Banjul, stole the sum of “one million five hundred and thirty eight thousand eight hundred and four dalasis ninety-five bututs (D1,538,804.95) the property of Kanalai Family Farm, thereby committed an offence. He denied any wrong doing.]]>
