Now I'm  really confused.

I thought someone indicated and confirmed their release after the arrest?

Which is the correct story?

Best regards,

Ablie Njie-Lekbi
Atlanta

>From: Momodou Camara <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: FWD:State Brushes Aside Judge's Verdict
>Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2004 13:40:59 -0500
>
>State Brushes Aside Judge's Verdict
>
>The Independent (Banjul)
>NEWS
>August 2, 2004
>Posted to the web August 3, 2004
>
>By Ebrima Sillah & Ahmed Carayol
>Banjul
>
>Barely six hours after a High Court Judge freed three civilians for want of
>evidence over charges of treason and conspiracy to commit treason, state
>security agents rearrested them for arbitrary reasons suggesting profound
>disaffection with the verdict.
>
>Momodou Dumo Sarho, Basirou Barrow and Ebrima Yarbo who were held
>incommunicado for four years were Friday, acquitted and discharged by
>Justice Ahmed Belgore for lack of convincing evidence on six counts of
>treason, conspiracy to commit treason and concealing information on a
>treasonable act. However a curious twist to the tale of the trial ensued
>just six hours after, Sarho, Barrow and Yarbo had packed out of their Mile
>Two Prison cells to their respective homes. Four plain-clothes security
>agents apprehended Dumo Sarho just after dusk while he was in the company
>of members of their immediate families and friends who had initially
>provoked a standoff with the arresting officers by refusing to let them go.
>Basirou Barrow was met in his home in Banjul and whisked away despite the
>angry protestations of his family and friends. However, in yet another
>curious twist to the same story Ebrima Yarbo was confirmed not to have
>suffered re-arrest unlike his co-accused who are still unaccounted for as
>family members and friends launched separate search parties Saturday with a
>view to tracing and determining where the two long-standing political
>prisoners were being held.
>
>Arresting officers who initially refused to identify themselves demanded to
>go with Dumo Sarho but family members and friends insisted that he was not
>going anywhere. A protracted push and pull ensued with the officers who
>feeling apparently outnumbered, called for reinforcements.
>
>While the standoff lasted, Dumo's lawyer, Ousainou Darboe was promptly
>briefed about the situation through telephone and he reportedly advised
>Dumo's family that if his client was going to be physically harmed, then
>they should accompany him to the police station. Up to the time of putting
>these details into writing neither Dumo nor Barrow had been reported
>released nor were any plausible reasons given for their arrest.
>
>Meanwhile, according to friends of Dumo's, they had made frantic but futile
>searches for him as the National Intelligence Agency and Police
>Headquarters profusely denied knowledge of his whereabouts. A man who
>described himself as a close friend of Mr. Sarho said their re-arrest and
>subsequent disappearance may be partially explained by the reluctance of
>the accused to return to Mile Two Prisons to formally sign out of custody.
>He said after they were discharged, the three men saw little reason to
>return to the prisons, preferring instead to walk immediately to freedom,
>despite the advise of some of their relatives, friends and sympathisers who
>saw it as satisfying "a mere formality" that wouldn't have lasted for more
>than one hour. "If this is the reason for them being taken back into
>custody, then it shows the knack for pettiness on the part of the
>authorities, who should instead apologise and even compensate the three men
>for holding them for more than four years without any evidence to show for
>it. The court has decided their innocence beyond doubt and if democracy and
>the rule of law are respected in this country, they should be set free
>without condition" one of Dumo's most trusted contemporaries said.
>
>Family members who described the government's action as a blithely
>deliberate disregard for the rule of law, said there is no doubt as to
>their course of action once the court has ruled in favour of the co-
>accused. They said they would without doubt file a petition against the
>state for Dumo's long-running detention and his re-arrest for a supposed
>offense, which the courts have thrown out the window.
>
>One of Dumo's best friends, who stayed for several years with him in
>Sweden, explained that following Dumo's release he had called the
>detainee's wife (who flew in from Sweden a day before the judgment) to make
>arrangements for what was intended as a quiet dinner with Mr. Sarho. He
>said he was waiting for the appointed time when later he was informed that
>four men in plain clothes had re-arrested Dumo.
>
>He described the government's apparent determination to maintain Dumo Sarho
>in custody even after the court had cleared him of any wrongdoing, as
>betraying the extent to which they can remorselessly use what he
>called "dirty tactics" to override the informed decisions of a law court.
>
>Friday's judgment
>
>On Friday, High Court Judge, Justice Ahmed Belgore acquitted and discharged
>Dumo Sarho, Ebrima Yarbo and Ebrima Barrow on all six counts suggesting
>treason.
>
>Delivering his three-and-half-hour judgment, Justice Belgore said it is an
>acceptable principle in every criminal trial that the prosecution must
>prove its case beyond reasonable doubt, which in this case was far from it.
>Justice Belgore said although the charges against the accused persons were
>indeed very serious and called for the death penalty life imprisonment, an
>incontrovertible case had never been established against them by the
>prosecution. "For somebody to be found guilty of treason or conspiracy to
>commit treason, an act has to be committed or about to be committed. And
>since this was not proven in court, I can only but acquit and discharge the
>accused" Belgore argued.
>
>Francisco Caso branded an irredeemable liar
>
>Justice Belgore said the evidence of the chief prosecution witness,
>Francisco case, an Italian, was inconsistent, full of contradictions and
>could not be relied upon in any credible court of law. Justice Belgore
>branded Caso an irredeemable liar who during the trial showed that he was
>not a "witness of truth", but instead used deception to entrench himself in
>the corridors of power.
>
>"He has a purely selfish agenda," the judge added.
>
>Justice Belgore said Caso's evidence in court were completely
>contradictory. And when confronted on this by the defence, Caso, according
>to the judge said he could neither read nor write in English and that his
>statement to the NIA was written for him by his wife.
>
>However, unwittingly proving his contradiction at one stage of the trial,
>Caso had told the court that he read the death of his one time business
>partner Toni Cartoni in the Daily Observer.
>
>Although Caso said he was a member of the Italian army for three years, he
>could still not differentiate between the ranks of major and lieutenant.
>Caso could not even remember his rank in the army and when he was enrolled
>therein. For this reason Justice Belgore said no serious tribunal could
>rely on such evidence to make a conviction and therefore saw no reason why
>the co-accused should be kept in prolonged custody, promptly acquitting and
>discharging them.
>
>Accused claimed torture
>
>Meanwhile in the course of the trial one of the accused persons claimed he
>was seriously tortured when in detention. Ebrima Barrow even produced a
>broken tooth and torn underwear to prove his claim of being tortured.
>
>He also showed laceration marks on his back, which he said, were as a
>result of the torture he went through. The judge said the fact that
>Barrow's statement had taken after 72 hours when he should have been
>charged and brought before a court of law, proved that the statement was
>not recorded under lawful environment. He said he found Barrow to be a
>witness of truth because he never second-guessed when he gave evidence.
>
>Belgore said Barrow's broken tooth was not self-inflicted. Justice Belgore
>also condemned the act of the state security officers by transferring
>Ebrima Barrow from his Mile Two Prison cell to the NIA headquarters where
>he underwent further interrogation. According to Belgore this was against
>state policy and good conduct. He said the fact that Barrow's statement was
>recorded in that highly suspect environment, renders it non-voluntary.
>
>He called on the state to always uphold the constitutional and human rights
>of those in their custody.
>
>Missing links
>
>The judge said he could not understand why important names that Caso in his
>statement mentioned like Sheriff Mustapha Dibba and Abdoulie Kujabi were
>not called to testify on their meeting with the Italian. The judge also
>wondered why the state failed to bring in the people who investigated the
>case as witnesses because the police detective who testified during the
>trial could not remember the people who investigated the case.
>
>During the trial Caso told the court that one of the accused persons had
>told him that he had weapons stock-piled in a village five miles away from
>Kanilai, the birth place of the president. But no investigation was made to
>locate the village and the judge wondered why this was not done because
>according to him, weapons were going to be very useful for the success or
>otherwise of an alleged coup. For this reason, Justice Belgore said it was
>a monstrous attempt on the side of the witnesses to mislead the court and
>therefore acquitted and discharged the three accused persons.
>
>Wild Celebrations In The Court Room
>
>And just as the judge delivered the not-guilty verdict friends and family
>members of the accused started hugging each other in wild celebration. Some
>of them started chanting "Long live Belgore; justice to the poor; restore
>Gambia's long cherished principles of respect for human and people's
>rights".
>
>Lawyers for the accused persons Mai Fatty and Ousman Darboe commended the
>judge for standing by natural justice. Mai Fatty went further to say "today
>is victory for the oppressed; today the prosecution has a lot to be ashamed
>of because you cannot charge people with capital punishment when you don't
>have evidence; today is when these innocent people have to go home with
>their heads held high; law enforcement has to take stock and realise that
>the longest day must come to an end".
>
>
>
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>Copyright © 2004 The Independent. All rights reserved. Distributed by
>AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
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