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Editors of The Independent have said that the moral burden now weighs down heavily on the state and the two suspects named in the National Assembly as alleged accomplices in last April's arson attack on the bi-weekly paper to come to the open and prove their guilt or innocence.

In a statement days after Honourable Hamat Bah made startling revelations in the National Assembly incriminating Corporals Sanna Manjang alias Blackie and Sheriff Guissey, Alagi Yorro Jallow (Managing Editor) and Abdoulie Sey (Editor-In-Chief) said the politician's disclosure was no news to them, since their own investigations had made them arrive at the same names inextricably linked with the attack, which completely destroyed a printing press newly acquired by the management of the bi-weekly paper.

Jallow and Sey in their usual joint statements said; "our investigations began on the last week of April and by the second week of May we had arrived at some very useful leads that successfully put us on the trail of some suspects' den. These names revealed by the honourable member of the National Assembly have recurrently occurred in the course of our investigations but our lawyer was emphatic (rightly so) in ensuring that we verify our details before we went blaring it to town. Our probing nets had been cast as far and wide as Brikama where one of the suspects who got away with some burns lived originally but had abandoned since the attack to seek refuge in Khalifa Bajinka's house where he was receiving treatment in the intervening months after the incident. These details were corroborated by people in the army who willingly without any prodding game from our end, volunteered information because they felt the knowledge and the attendant guilt was too heavy a burden for their pricked conscience to perpetually withhold. Pertinent to the success or otherwise of the investigations, we conducted an undercover visit to Sanna Manjang's Brikama home where relatives confirmed that's where he had lived until recently (in April) when he left. Putting our investigative skills to the test also required us to use a lady with an innocuous disposition (and with whom Manjang had had some close acquaintance) to ask him how he came to be inflicted with such mortal wounds. His unsuspecting reply was that he had suffered such terrible injuries (burns) as a result of a gas accident.

"About Corporal Sheriff Guissey - our investigations led us to the inscrutable fact that he lives in Bakoteh and had led the attack. Since May we made painstaking efforts to unravel the scattered pieces of the arson jigsaw, and with the professional advise of our lawyer, we were not to deliver it to the hurried charade leading to the public gallery, preferring instead to pick up the bits and pieces inch by inch and allow things to take their natural course. As a matter of routine practise, we sent our findings to international press organisations one of whom wrote to President Jammeh since July 13 communicating these details to him and their abiding concern for the flagrant state of insecurity bedeviling journalists in this country. Jammeh's reply? As far as we know - nothing - just the usual pretentious, condescending silence. The letter from the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) was also copied to the Departments of Justice, Interior, Communication and Technology and the Inspector General of Police (See other front page story).

"Our lack of consummate faith in the police, since the first arson attack in October 2003 stems from their self-willed indifference to pursue the case without let or hindrance. Notwithstanding this we have been patiently waiting for any fresh police leads into the case but today, Arson No 1 is a sad and forgotten story - effectively dead and buried. It is now three months since Arson No 2 and yet nothing, just a hazy, highfalutin promise that police attitude towards the investigations cannot even make good in practical terms. After three months, we should have been informed about the progress or otherwise of their investigations (if ever this is taking place). But their stolid indifference or lack of solid interest in the case, ensured from the start that the investigations would unwind at a dead-end notwithstanding the discovery and delivery of a smoking gun to officers as a useful article of evidence to trail its source. This indefensible attitude explains why we refrained from divulging these details to the police and other parties. Even a newshound from a sister paper three weeks ago made futile efforts to elicit comments from us in reaction to news of Sanna Manjang's refuge in Khalifa Bajinka's residence. We refrained from hazarding any statement that could practically end up jeopardizing the investigations - ours and the so-called police. Does it say anything about the police that even a week before Hamat made a clean breast of it in the National Assembly the IGP was verbally informed about the two suspects?

"Availing ourselves of civic rights as bonafide citizens entitled to protection from an administration professing to conform to democratic norms and values, we are within the ambits of these instruments demanding that these two suspects particularly Sanna Manjang appear in public to explain how he came to be afflicted with burns in the first place and Sheriff Guissey on whether he could answer the description of the leading arsonist of April 13. The police cannot hide behind the fact that Sanna Manjang could not be found in Bajinka's address as the futile chase was made after Honourable Bah spilled the can of worms. Even the stupid donkey won't wait to be drenched under a storm. But this could be beside the point. The point is in fact appearing and giving the decent world a chance to arrive at the depth of the matter once and for all.

"As far as these revelations have been made at the highest level, the state cannot take it as dispensable fodder. If they act, they would positively prove our skepticism about their sincerity wrong. If they fail to act, they will just be confirming our worst fears of connivance and complicity and inspire us to sprint to the conclusion that the arson attack on The Independent was indeed state-sponsored. It must be understood that we painstakingly refrained from jumping to this conclusion from the onset, but if Bajinka of all professional Gambians with a calling as honourable as defending the people of The Gambia in peace and wartime could harbour a bloodshot arsonist with a rabid interest in seeing him nursed back to health, what bands of people are Gambians entrusting their lives to? Why the languid inaction? Why the double standards? Why the solid silence?".