Folks,
This is from the Independent. 

And they call themselves the National Intelligence Agengy? What a pitty!

Malanding

As house search leads to unlicensed gun, "classified documents" NIA react to Dominic Mendy Ex-minister dismisses allegations of subversive activiti
The National Intelligence Agency have reacted sharply to Dominic Mendy who claimed in an interview with The Independent last week that his arrest was linked to statements he made about the groundnut industry. A senior official of the NIA said the points Mr. Mendy advanced as reasons for his arrest were misleading and beside the issue. He maintained that the agency never accused Mr. Mendy of making statements of sabotage against the government. Instead he revealed that the NIA's arrest of the former minister was prompted by information they had received that he was "mobilizing some people to destabilise the country". 

The senior NIA personnel indicated that those information had pointed to subversive activities being allegedly planned by Dominic Mendy in cahoots with an unnamed group to create a situation of insecurity in the country. He also claimed that during a search of the ex-minister's house by personnel of the agency, an unlicensed revolver was discovered, which Mr. Mendy said belonged to his wife's grandfather but which the NIA argued strongly suggests his involvement in a subversive campaign against the state. 

The official also pointed out that the National Intelligence Agency were in possession of "solid evidence" that Mr. Mendy had failed to handover some "classified" state documents to the government following his removal from office two years ago. The NIA said his failure to turnover the documents could not be explained, although they maintained that the documents were the rightful property of the state and it was wrong for him to keep the document as a private citizen. 

However, Mr. Mendy denied that the items found by the NIA in his house were state documents. He claimed that they were his personal files and documents on the Think Tank committee that charged with formulating Vision 2020 and old newspapers carrying information about the crude oil saga. Mr. Mendy was the chairman of the Think Tank and the architect of Vision 2020. The former minister also claimed that the revolver discovered in his house was an old and rustic gun, which originally belonged to his late father-in-law who bequeathed it to his (Dominic's) wife. He also dismissed NIA allegations, connecting him to subversive activities against the government. "How can I be involved in subversive activities against the government of which I was a co-founder. I cannot destroy what I have already created" he emphasised. 

Mr. Mendy said since his removal from office on January 1 1999 he has been living a quiet life as private citizen and a businessman interested in the peace and tranquility of the country. He said as a controller of an enterprising business he could only be interested in The Gambia's peace and stability for the thriving of his enterprise. Mr. Mendy who said he would not describe four days under NIA custody as harassment, pointed out that since he left government there has never been a strain of bad blood between them, adding that his recent experience was not enough to overwhelm his positive appraisal of the APRC government. 

He was however, quick to add that he was never an active politician but was serving the state as a technocrat. Although he agreed that his detention for more than 72 hours was an infringement of his constitutional rights as a Gambian, he was not interested in challenging the state in that regard. 

In an earlier interview Dominic Mendy had claimed that he was arrested and held by the NIA for four days without charge. He told The Independent that he was accused of remarks which sabotage the government, a claim he denied, saying it was a surprise that innocuous statements he had made at a stakeholders' workshop at the Kairaba Beach hotel regarding the groundnut industry were trumped up as the causes of his arrest. 

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