Mansour, I respect your intervention and that of Saul the other day. In fact I would have refrained from commenting on this issue again had you not copied a portion of my message. However, I will just make a few comments without propogating what I wrote earlier on. If you follow most of what I write, you will realize that I try very hard not to slander people. I take my contributions very seriously. Ousman Jammeh happens to be someone that I sincerely hope does not become an AG under this regime. I harbor no resentment for him. To be quite frank, I like him. If you review my postings on the April massacre, you will realize that I did not make any unjustified attacks on the coroner.`However, one can be my blood brother, but the moment one becomes a Yaya supporter, that is it. Reports that we heard said that Ousman was with Yaya. I had no reason to doubt those reports. That is why I wrote what I wrote. Everything I said about Ousman on Friday was known to me previously. But I never brought it up eventhough I did not agree with some of his moves as the coroner in the massacre saga. The simple reason being, I did not want to speak about Ousman in a negative light in a context that what I was saying was irrelevant. Having said that, there are rules and regulations governing the appointment of AGs. To be an AG in The Gambia, you do not just have to be a Barrister/Solicitor/Attorney licensed to practise before a court of law in certain jurisdictions, you also have to have a certain amount of post-call experience i.e. you should have practised your profession for a certain number of years. In Gambia you do not just become a lawyer by getting a law degree. You need to take the Bar if you want to practise as a Barrister and you also need to take the solicitor's finals if that is the route you want to take (if my recollection serves me right that also takes a year). All I was trying to point out was that if Ousman Jammeh did not regularize his situation by sitting for the Bar somewhere, he should not accept the position because he is not qualified to accept the position. Truth can never be slanderous. If I had known that Ousman took the Bar and then delibrately lied about it, then that would be slander. I said in my piece that I would be more than happy to learn that Ousman did that. The focus of my piece was really to show why Ousman (like Marong) should not even be considered for, let alone appointed as AG. It was also meant to give Ousman a valid reason (based on the law) to turn down any offer given to him. I realized that some of the things I said might hurt someone. That realization prompted me to be very frank with Ousman because I knew close friends of his will not bring that topic up. Again, I hope Ousman does not accept the position and taint his good name with the illegal activities of this government. I meant no personal harm to him. I also did not mean to tarnish his image. He might not have taken the Bar, but that certainly does not mean that he is dumb. He is a smart young man that do not need the the garbage that comes with this illegal government. Mansour, thanks for giving me an opportunity to set the record straight on an issue I have privately lamented about. I hope Ousman Jammeh and his family and friends will also take my posting in the spirit I wrote it. KB ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------