The arrival of the alleged coup plotters at the the high court in Banjul.
By Landing Ceesay
The Prosecution (State) has tendered the call record printouts of the first accused person (Sanna Fadera) with other accused persons of the alleged December 2022 attempted Coup.
Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Jally M.I. Senghore, the Sixth Prosecution Witness (PW6), continued giving his testimony in the alleged coup plotters’ trial before Justice Basiru B.V.P Mahoney of the High Court of the Gambia.
The Four (4) Soldiers and one (1) Police Officer are accused of an attempted alleged Coup and been charged with 5 counts, including treason. The defendants standing trial are Lance Corporal Sanna Fadera (1st accused) Private Officer, Gibril Darboe (2nd accused) Corporal Ebrima Sannoh (3rd accused), and Corporal Omar Njie (4th accused), Fabakary Jawara (5th accused) is the Police Officer charged alongside the Soldiers.
ASP Senghore explained to the court how the panel set up by the government to investigate the alleged attempted Coup printed out the call recordings of the 1st accused person (Sanna Fadera) with other accused persons.
“The phones of the accused persons were brought before the panel to find out whether prior to or after December they were communicating. More emphasis was put on the 1st accused person’s (Sanna Fadera) phone to see the people he had been in contact with. Two Africell numbers were found to belong to the 1st accused person. We took the numbers to Africell, the numbers were screened to find, and a printout was made.
“Then we highlighted the printout and analyzed it to see which people the 1st accused was frequently communicating with. It is evident that they (accused persons) do communicate before and after December 2022. But what their communication was based on, I would not know. Upon highlighting the printout, we confronted them with it. We then requested another printout of the same numbers. Which were brought together with certificates from Africell,” ASP Senghore told the court.
ASP Senghore told the court that the panel found out that the 1st and 2nd accused do communicate, but they did not know what their communication was based on.
When asked how the panel knows that the 1st and 2nd accused do communicate, ASP Senghore told the court that through the call recordings printed out from Africell.
However, ASP Senghore told the court that he cannot remember the numbers of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th accused persons offhand. But he could remember the two numbers of the 1st accused person (Sanna Fadera).
The witness was given the printout of the accused persons and called records from Africell for identification, and he identified the printouts as the ones he received from Africell.
The prosecution applied to tender the printout from Africell
However, Counsel LS Camara for the 1st and 5th accused person asked the court to guide him, otherwise he will opt to object to the documents.
He argued that the prosecution did not lay the foundation for the prints out to be tendered before the court.
Counsel LS Camara urged the court to guide him through the records before he made any objection to the documents.
Justice Basiru B.V.P Mahoney guided Counsel LS Camara and told him that the prosecution actually laid the foundation for the documents to be tendered.
Counsel LS Camara then told the court that he has no objection to the documents. The other defense counsel also did not object to the documents, and Justice Mahoney then admitted them into evidence as part of prosecution exhibits.
“Did you find any other number on the prints out from Africell,” Counsel A.M Yusuf for the State asked ASP Senghore.
“Yes, my lord, during highlighting of the printouts. I found a number that was frequently communicating with the 1st accused person. That number belongs to one Karamo Jatta,” ASP Senghore told the court.
“Did you write that number anywhere,” State Counsel Yusuf asked the witness again.
“Yes, amongst the documents given,” the witness responded.
The State Counsel then asked the witness whether he could remember which specific document he wrote the number of Karamo Jatta on. The witness responded in the negative.
Counsel A.M. Yusuf then wanted to refresh the mind of the witness by relying on Section 217 of the Evidence Act.
Counsel LS Camara objected to it and said witness memory refresh is commonly used in civil proceedings and rarely used in criminal proceedings.
“The witness is being asked to refresh on a document that is not his, when the evidence Act is saying the witness can be refreshed on a document that is written by the witness. We urged the court to refuse the application for the prosecution to tender the printout of Karamo Jatta,” he said.