News about the movement in Ousman Sabally's civil case against the government regarding the massacre on April 10 and 11, 2000, just goes to show how sick the Gambian legal system currently is. I was very encouraged when I learnt that Hawa Sisay (representing her husband, Ousman Sabally) subpoenaed the Solicitor General to produce the Commission's report in court. This is a test case. We will see whether the judge in this matter will have the guts to enforce court rulings. If Raymond Sock treats the court with contempt and refuses to produce the report, would he be thrown in jail for criminal contempt of court because he is engaged in a cover up? Time will tell. Another thing about this case is that Hawa Sisay's brother-in-law is the government's chief legal adviser. Is Joseph Joof going to be a recusant and not participate in this case? Or is he going to disown his family and advise the government on ways to ensure that Sabally is denied justice? This is just sickening. In any case, other victims of the massacre should take a cue from this and step on the peddle on their civil suits. The legal defense team that was looking after the interest of the victims, should continue to pursue ways of bringing this matter to the courts. I need not tell them that they have a lighter burden to carry in civil suits when compared with criminal cases. It goes without saying that real lawyers will have no problems showing the culpability of the government in this matter. At the very least, civil suits will bring some degree of closure to the families of the massacred victims. The families will hopefully get a neutral forum where they can air their grievances and unlike the Commission of Inquiry, they will not allow government officials to come in and lie about our dead heroes (blaming them for their deaths). At the end of the day, criminals might not be jailed after the civil suit, but the government will pay in a big way for their heinous behavior on April 10 and 11, 2000 when children as young as three were massacred in broad daylight by government security forces acting on the orders of Yaya. Finally, I commend Hawa Sisay for her stance. This is evidence that one can serve Yaya and then turn ones life around and do good things. KB _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.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 You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------