By Mamadou Dem
Sait Matty Jaw, a lecturer at the University of The Gambia, who is
standing trial on charges of conspiracy, failure to register a
business and disobedience to statutory duty, will open his defence on Monday, 13 April, after the final prosecution witness ended his
testimony yesterday.The announcement of the closure of the prosecution’s case at the
Banjul Magistrates’ Court was made by State Counsel Babacarr Drammeh,
who was assisted by Abdourahman Bah, after their third prosecution
witness finished testifying.
Mr. Jaw, was earlier charged along with Seth Yaw Kandeh, a
Ghanaian national, and Olufemi Erinle Titus, a Nigerian, both of whom
pleaded guilty to all the counts and were accordingly sentenced to a
fine, maintains his innocence.
Prior to the prosecution’s announcement and the subsequent adjournment
of the matter, Amadou John, National Schools Coordinator for West
African Bird Study Association (WABSA), who doubles as vice chairman
of a youth committee in Banjul, testified under cross-examination that
it is correct as stated by counsel that the accused person was not a
resource person during the training held at Tango. He added that
transport refunds were given to them by one of the trainers by the
name Seth.
The witness further told the Court that there was no clearance for the
training and that he decided to text the accused regarding the issue
as it seemed that the trainers were playing games or tricks with them.
“We read the questionnaires given to us as assignment. When we
reported the following day, we told them that we cannot do the survey
but the trainers told us that the questionnaires will be changed,” he
said.
“Did you get to collect any data pursuant to the training you had?”
lawyer Camara quizzed.
“We did not collect any data,” replied the witness.
PW3 further adduced that the manual they received during the training
was authored by the accused person. He said the accused person told
him that he will be traveling out of the country prior to the training
and was not within the vicinity since the first day of the
training. He said the accused told them that any problem they had
during the training they can communicate to one Mr. Baldeh and also
the trainers.
Pw3 told the Court that with any doubt they have, they usually
forwarded a text message to the accused and he used to respond.
The matter was adjourned to next week Monday and Tuesday respectively
for Mr. Jaw to open his defence.]]>
