By Ramatoulie Jawo
The 2020 Criminal Offence Bill, currently under consideration in Parliament, has introduced penalties for individuals found guilty of receiving stolen property.
According to the bill, anyone who knowingly accepts or keeps stolen goods could face up to seven years in prison.
Clause 276 of the bill outlines the offence as follows:
(1) A person who receives or retains any chattel, money, valuable security or other property whatsoever knowing or having reason to believe the same to have been feloniously stolen, taken, extorted, obtained or disposed of commits a felony and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for 7 years.
(2) A person who receives or retains any chattel, money, valuable security or other property whatsoever, knowing or having reason to believe the same to have been unlawfully take, obtained, converted or disposed of in a manner which constitutes a misdemeanour, commits a misdemeanour, and is liable on conviction to the same punishment as the offender by whom the property was unlawfully obtained, converted or disposed of.
(3) A person shall not be convicted of an offence under this section unless it is proved that the chattel, money, valuable security or other property to which the charge relates has in fact been unlawfully taken obtained, converted or disposed of, as the case may be,” it stated.
Clause 277 extends these provisions to stolen property from abroad, specifying that:
“(1) If a person without lawful excuse receives, or has in his or her possession, any property stolen outside the Gambia knowing or having reason to believe the property to have been stolen, he or she is liable on conviction to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for Five years.
(2) And two for the purposes of this section, property shall be deemed to have been stolen where it has been taken, extorted, obtained, embezzled, converted, or disposed of in such circumstances that, if the act had been committed in the Gambia, the person committing it would have committed an offence under this Act.
“(3)An offence under this section shall be felony or misdemeanour according as the act committed outside the Gambia would have been a felony, or misdemeanour if committed in The Gambia,”
During the consideration of the bill, Speaker Jatta addressed the procedure, mentioning concerns about vehicles imported into the Gambia, with some allegedly being stolen. He shared an exchange about how individuals purchasing such vehicles could avoid being implicated, provided they had proper documentation proving ownership.
“What they are telling me, I never knew about that, they are saying that some of these vehicles coming from abroad; some of them are stolen properties. So our argument was this may affect you if you buy them. What I was telling him was before I buy a vehicle, I want the documentation, the ownership, and all these things. If those things are correct I have the right to buy that vehicle if the person I bought it from has stolen it, or he knows it is a stolen property, that is between him and the police. That is not me, because I have credible documents to say that it’s his own property, this is what we were talking about. We know we are making laws so we should do what it entails so that we can agree or disagree,” he said.
Honorable Abdoulie Ceesay, the National Assembly member for Old Yundum, pointed out that international law enforcement, such as Interpol, handles issues related to stolen vehicles from abroad.
“Specifically vehicles coming from abroad for us, we cannot legislate to say any vehicle coming from abroad even if some are stolen, how do you justify that it is a stolen vehicle, because something that is shipped with authentic documents into your country you wouldn’t know,” he said.
Honorable Alhagie Mbowe of Upper Saloum voiced his opinion against the clause, arguing that more significant issues, such as capital flight from the continent, should take precedence.
“How many millions, how many billions is taken away from this continent on yearly basis? So we should not bother ourselves with this thing, so what I am saying is we should expunge it. This one is not necessary, so let them sort out our capital flight first,” he said.