MENTALLY ILL STILL DETAINED AT MILE TWO PRISON

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By Mustapha Jallow Ambu Drammeh, a mentally ill young man, who has been detained at the state central prison at Mile Two for seven months now, is still being held incommunicado, according to a close family source.The mentally ill young man was earlier ordered by the Brikama magistrate court to be taken to the ‘Tanka Tanka’ psychiatric hospital to undergo treatment after having been arraigned for encroaching on the aircraft parking lot at the Banjul International Airport. He was arrested immediately before the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan in 2014 when state security agents from the National Intelligence Agency went for him at his family residence in Farato. An elder brother of this mentally deranged young man told this medium earlier that when the operatives came to their home in Farato, they asked for Ambu and informed the family that they found his Birth Certificate, National ID (Identity) card, prayer (rosary) beads and a pair of shoes underneath the president’s plane at the airport. The source said the agents waited for him until he returned home and then whisked him away. He said after being held briefly, he was later released and that he returned home. After a week later, he said, the agents came again asking for Ambu and that they were told that he left for Kerr Pateh village in the North Bank Region to take local treatment. It was reported that he was later picked up by the security from the village and brought to Police headquarters in Banjul. “We were told by the police that he was held there for only two days and then taken away. When we checked for him at the NIA, we were told that he was not with them. We searched for him at the Brikama and Yundum police stations, as well as Tanka Tanka, but he was nowhere to be found,” revealed Ambu’s elder brother. After making several visits to the central prison in search of their loved one, said the brother, the prison officers eventually confirmed that he was there but that no one can have access to him. The family members said they last made another attempt to visit him at the prison on 25 November, 2014, but again were denied access to him by the prison officials. The family said they are appealing to the head of state to help them secure the release of this young man from prison.]]>