Former acting attorney general Amie Bensouda insisted in her closing statement at the TRRC she never served Yahya Jammeh.

“I just want to emphasize I was solicitor general before Yahya Jammeh took over office. He found me in office. He did not appoint me. I have never served Yahya Jammeh, I served my country. There were horrendous human rights violations. But these were not enabled by the ministry of justice, certainly not under my watch. Those responsible should be held responsible for that,” the experienced lawyer insisted.

Bensouda appeared before the TRRC on Tuesday to testify on up to six decrees she fashioned for the AFPRC military junta.

Former President Jammeh ruled by decree for more than two years after seizing power in a coup in 1994.

The decrees have been viewed as bad laws that enabled Jammeh perpetuate himself in power but also violate the rights of citizens.

Bensouda however told the TRRC the decrees she made were good and help prevent Gambia moving towards anarchy.

PDOIS leader and presidential candidate Halifa Sallah has warned his party is done with coalitions that are meant only to change ‘face’.

In a news conference on Tuesday, Sallah said his party is now focused on system change.

He said: “What we should take note of is what is essentially the nature of politics in any country. Parties can participate on their own accord, coalitions can be built. So those are all possibilities in an electoral system. So no political party will ever dismiss that you will not stand alone or you will not build coalition.

“But what we have said and said it very clearly is that PDOIS has exhausted that trend of building coalition for regime change. That is history. PDOIS will never ever again participate in any form of coalition just to change face.

“PDOIS will always move towards system change and we have already articulated that system change. If any party wants to join PDOIS in that bandwagon for system change, they’re welcome.”

MC Cham Jnr has suggested those claiming President Adama Barrow is humble do not know what a humble person is.

“They say Barrow is humble. I hope Gambians know someone humble. A president who aims digs at others is humble? A president who says things that are not true is humble?” Cham Jnr told GDC supporters in an audio message.

Supporters of President Barrow say he is a humble leader – and they rehashed their position on Tuesday when the president got ridiculed for walking off the red carpet to wave at a crowd in Sierra Leone.

Momodou Sabally has savaged Mambury Njie and his principal President Adama Barrow amid the finance minister’s claim there was no money yet to sponsor the voting of Gambians in the diaspora.

The Standard reported this week Finance Minister Mambury Njie disclosed there was no money budgeted for Gambians in the diaspora to vote in the December election.

Sabally reacted: “I felt disappointed and sad. The Standard headline says, ‘no money yet for diaspora voting’. Finance Minister Mambury Njie who is a bull within Barrow’s squirrel community was the one who said there is no money yet for Gambia diaspora voting.

“When I saw this, I was sad due to the sacrifice Gambians in the diaspora made to ensure Adama Barrow became president. But all the reward went to those who not fight, who never supported Barrow. So this government is like a squirrel that grabbed the peanut heap from its owner. Mambury Njie has snatched the peanut heap of Gambians in the diaspora.

“Mambury said the budget approved by MPs for 2021 did not cater to Gambians in the diaspora voting. He said if Gambians in the diaspora are to vote, the government will have to go back to the national assembly to ask for more money called supplementary appropriation.

“So Adama Barrow and Mambury Njie did not know there will be elections in this year? Do they not know Gambians in the diaspora are supposed to vote? Why didn’t they include that money into the budget?

“But again when Barrow likened Gambians in the diaspora to the tail of a goat is when I knew he would not accept them to vote. Because he knows those people are politically aware and he cannot deceive them and they will not vote for him.”

By XINHUA

Sierra Leone on Tuesday celebrated the country’s 60th independence anniversary to mark its historic occasion of gaining independence from Britain.

“Our freedom fighters went through countless suffering to give us our freedom. 27th April is a day of remembrance and honor to our heroes,” said Sierra Leonean President Julius Maada Bio at a ceremony, adding that over the past 60 years, the Sierra Leonean people have learned to live together as a nation.

“We have felt the pain, learned the lessons, used the lessons as opportunities to learn, and drawn strength from those opportunities to become a better nation,” he said.

The president said the country is investing heavily to increase the quality of education and healthcare, develop agriculture and promote food security as “the people of Sierra Leone are the most valuable resource.”

Some West African leaders also joined the celebration at the State House.

The Independent Electoral Commission has announced registering Alliance for National Re-orientation and Development.

Acronymed ANRD, the IEC registered the party on Tuesday. It takes the number of political parties in the country to 18.

The party is led by Lamin Bojang, erstwhile presidential candidate of Gambia Action Party.

He told The Fatu Network “we are delighted and our hard works rewarded eventually”.

Bojang is a former Gambian army general.

Experienced lawyer Amie Bensouda has said she takes no responsibility for anything Yahya Jammeh did as she testified on decrees the former president ruled by which she created.

The decrees are being touted in some quarters including the TRRC quarters as laws that disempowered the constitution and enabled Jammeh violate the rights of citizens.

But Amie Bensouda told the TRRC on Tuesday: “Every society, whether autocratic or military or democratic needs rules to operate. The decrees did not enable Yahya Jammeh and his regime. Yahya Jammeh and his group, the junta, took power without any decrees. They held power without decrees, they arrested people without decrees, they tortured people without decrees.

“So the decrees were intended to introduce order in our society, to give an understanding to the people as to how the military intends to rule. You will not find in any decree that a person can be tortured, you will not find in any decree that they should into anybody’s home and beat them up. That the military did these things was a violation, even of their own decrees.

“So I take no responsibility for anything that Yahya Jammeh did. I take no responsibility for any action of the junta. What I take responsibility for is for doing all my best to ensure that there was a structure in place within which Gambians can find coherence and stability.”

President Adama Barrow’s critics pounced after the Gambian leader briefly stepped off the red carpet rolled out for him in Sierra Leone to wave at a crowd.

Both the president and his wife briefly stepped away from the red carpet to wave at a crowd gathered as he arrived in Sierra Leone on Monday.

Nyang Njie said: “The Red Carpet is rolled out in honour of dignitaries visiting a country. It is protocol and customary to walk on the carpet. Look at President Bio relative to our main man.

“President Bio is within the confines of the carpet whilst our President has since forgotten that he was walking on one. Understanding protocol etiquette is part of Diplomacy 101. Please Mr. President stay on your prescribed lane and that is on the Red carpet rolled out in honor of you.”

One reacted: “My brother mang jabosii.. I don’t know the role of his protocols and the manager of this State House page.. Both 6 and 9, no understand anything, anything from Big Faa.”

Marie Sock said: “Bio is like … Dude where are you going?? .. lol ?.. Ohh Gambia.”

Faith Cole: “We are disgraced internationally daily, is this Gambia’s best ???”

PDOIS leader and presidential candidate said on Tuesday Gambians were refusing to recognize the impact his party has made in the country.

Sallah spoke as he responded to a question from a journalist Gambians weren’t appreciating PDOIS’ message.

Sallah said: “What I know is that I was a presidential candidate in 2016 and when I invited the presidential candidates, five of them, to Kairaba [Beach Hotel] so that we can build a coalition and allow one of us to be the candidate, I know that eventually people came. Now, after that, it came to a situation where we prepared the ground to select a candidate and I believe that we did succeed in selecting a candidate.

“And I believe that we did campaign and I am sure those who followed our campaign would hear my voice and I believe that the type of campaign we thought was acceptable to the Gambian people was actually the type of campaign which occurred. And I remember the president (Adama Barrow) then saying… And I don’t anybody to think that we’re caricaturing him in any way. But that, ‘I have people around me and I’m not afraid of anything’.

“And obviously we were among those and what we said appeared to have been very much agreeable to the Gambian population and very much understood by them. And I believe that that method of campaign has never happened in this country by any party other than PDOIS.

“A very peaceful campaign. Message-drive campaign. Insult-free campaign. Anger-free campaign. Until the end that we could mobilise the whole Gambian population. One Gambia, one nation, one people. And the whole country became inspired. That’s how we won 2016. How can we separate PDOIS from that and say that your message is not being heard? Who made it possible to change the country in 2016? We achieved and you deprive us of our achievement? You don’t want to see our achievement.

“You don’t want to hear our achievement. That is the problem of the country. It’s not that PDOIS has not had impact but people refuse to recognize the impact and give the impression that PDOIS has not been having impact. But when they need something, they come to us so that they achievement it. Yet they say nobody listens to us.”

By Ousman Jatta

The magistrates court in Brikama will deliver a ruling in the ongoing land case between Landing Jadama a businessman and a resident of Brufut village and Borry Jassey Alkalo of Old Yundum Village.

The trial resumed on Monday with the senior state counsel Omar Sibbie presenting copies of sermons against plaintiff landing Jadama at the high court, as demanded by the magistrate.

Old Yundum alkalo Borry Jassey got sued by Jadama over a vast land in Old Yundum he claims ownership of.

A similar case is at the high court in Banjul and the magistrate in the trial had asked for copies of sermons by the complainants who sued Landing Jadama at the High Court regarding the same land.

The magistrate was presented with the copies of sermons on Tuesday and he is not set to deliver a ruling whether to proceed with the case.

Amie Bensouda has testified that former President Yahya Jammeh and his military council asked her and her team to draft decrees and they did.

“No, they did not come up with a draft. They asked us to provide a draft. Yes, we did but even if I wasn’t there, whether they would eventually have gotten somebody else to draft something, I believe so. But we were the ones there, they asked us to draft it and we did,” she told the TRRC on Tuesday.

Bensouda went up with TRRC’s lawyer Sagar Jahateh who quizzed the veteran lawyer from every available angle on the decrees Jammeh ruled by between 1994 and 1997. The constitution played second fiddle to the decrees which have been much savaged as bad laws that sought to protect Jammeh and enabled him to violate the rights of citizens.

“The fact of the matter is that this is not a hypothetical situation, you were the one on the ground, you were there, you were attorney general at the time and therefore you would have only been the one to do the job at that time and you did it,” Jahateh fired back when Bensouda told her the junta could have gotten someone else to draft the decrees. Bensouda reacted back by agreeing she was indeed the one who did the job.

“And that is what I wanted you to take responsibility for?” Jahateh told her.

“What is there to take responsibility for?” Bensouda asked.

“That you assisted them to draft the decrees,” Jahateh replied.

According to Mrs Bensouda, it was her role as the acting attorney general to “receive their instructions, to in turn instruct the parliamentary council and I did”.

“Very well, we will take that answer and I will leave it to the commission to decide,” Jahateh reacted.

“Whether I take responsibility for the decrees?” Bensouda enquired.

“That was not my question. My question was that you were assisting them. That is all I said. I did not say you came up with the concept or the idea. That has already been well established. You could have said no,” Jahateh said.

Bensouda replied: “I could have said no probably but as far as I was concerned, what weighted on me was the public interest. What was in the interest of the public at that time. Could we contain the excesses of the military? Certainly decrees were needed. Not for the benefit of the military but for the benefit of the people.”

“Are you saying Mrs Bensouda that these military decrees actually benefitted the public and they were in the interest of the public, escpecially considering all the evidence that we have received that this was a tool by Yahya Jammeh to entrench himself in power in this country?” Jahateh then asked her.

She then replied: “The decrees that I drafted was in the interest of the public. How the public chose in 1997… Instead of repealing these decrees, they were incorporated in the 1997 constitution. The greatest part of the violation of rights which occurred in this country occurred after the 1997 constitution came into effect. Those decrees are still in our statute books. That is the choice of the Gambian people, not the solicitor general or Mrs Bensouda.”

Over 200 soldiers at 4 Infantry Battalion in Kanilai were last week Tuesday decorated to various Non Commission Officer (NCO) ranks.

“The promoted soldiers were 92 Privates to the rank of Lance Corporal, 129 Lance Corporals to Corporal, 27 Corporals to Sergeant and one Sergeant to Staff Sergeant, the army said in an update on its official Facebook page.

The update added: “You may recall in recent months, Gambia Armed Forces battalions and units have been engaged in series of decoration ceremonies for soldiers under command. From Gambia Armed Forces Training School (GAFTS), to State Guard Battalion (SG) and 1 Infantry Battalion. Recent of all, is the 4 Infantry Battalion in Kanilai.

“This came on heels of Gambia Armed Forces (GAF) high command’s decision in 2020 to embark on a merit based promotion of its personnel to Junior and Senior NCO ranks. This was done to recognize the hard work, dedication and loyalty of GAF personnel in the NCO core.

“The event was graced by the Army Commander, Brigadier General Ousman Gomez, and senior GAF Officers, members of the security fraternity, families and love ones of the promotees.”

By Sarjo Brito

As the National Association of Gambia Nurses and Midwives demands for better allowances, the public also gets to hear startling revelations about alleged working conditions in some health facilities.

Speaking to The Fatu Network yesterday, PRO of the Association Sana Darboe said the lack of protective personal equipment has hit The Gambia healthcare system as health workers allegedly use one pair of hand gloves for up to three different procedures. Darboe said this has huge health implications as it poses a major threat to not just patients but healthcare workers themselves and the families they go home to.

“There are a lot of things that are not available in the system. Nurses are overstretched and going beyond boundaries to make sure patients are satisfied. For the past three to four months now we have been struggling. Even a glove is not available. Nurses are using one pair of gloves to perform two or three different procedures. For example, a nurse will use a glove, wash it, dry it and use it again. This is detrimental to the health of the patient and the Nurse because a pair of gloves should be used for a single procedure. Once you use a glove, it is infected already,” Darboe said.

Darboe on behalf of the association pleaded with the government of the Gambia to pay attention to their plight as they also play a key role in the healthcare system. The young Nurse also shared that they have exhausted all diplomatic means of communication to help address their struggle and are now left without a choice but to give government an ultimatum and if not met until Wednesday April 28th, 2021, they would be forced to resort to ‘other mean’ which were not specified in the interview.

“We have negotiated, and we are still open for negotiations but there is limitation to everything we do. We have given an ultimatum to the government of the Gambia to respond to us on or before Wednesday April 28. So, it is up to government now to save the Gambian people if they have the interest,” he said.

Seventeen people were found dead Monday on a boat drifting off El Hierro in Spain’s Canary Islands, officials said, as migrant arrivals to the archipelago surge despite the deadly dangers of the crossing.

A Spanish military helicopter airlifted three survivors — two men and a woman — to a hospital on the island of Tenerife, local emergency services said in a tweet.

One of the men was in serious condition with “severe dehydration”, it added.

A Spanish air force plane first spotted the boat some 265 nautical miles southeast of El Hierro on Monday morning and a search and rescue vessel was deployed to the area, a spokeswoman for Spain’s maritime rescue service said.

The migrants on the boat were all sub-Saharan Africans, she added.

It was not immediately clear where the boat had embarked from.

Earlier this month four people were found dead in a makeshift boat that was found south of El Hierro, with 23 migrants on board.

At its shortest, the sea crossing to the Atlantic islands from the Moroccan coast is around 100 kilometers (60 miles), but it is a notoriously dangerous route because of strong currents. Vessels are also typically overcrowded and in poor condition.

Migrant arrivals on the archipelago surged after increased patrols along Europe’s southern coast dramatically reduced crossings to the continent via the Mediterranean.

Some 3,400 people arrived in the Canaries between January 1 and March 31 this year, compared with less than half that number over the same period in 2020.

Rights groups have warned that the COVID-19 crisis has spurred the flight effect, with those working in tourism, fishing or other casual jobs in north Africa choosing to cross the Atlantic — or helping others do so with their boats after being left penniless by the economic meltdown triggered by the pandemic.

Last year, 1,851 people died on the route, according to the Caminando Fronteras organization which monitors migrant flows.

Meanwhile, around 100 migrants tried to swim to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from neighbouring Morocco on Sunday, Spanish police said.

The migrants, including minors, set off in groups of 20 to 30 throughout the day, a spokesman for the Guardia Civil police force in Ceuta said. (CGTN Africa)

Former Janneh Commission attorney Amie Bensouda took the witness seat at the TRRC today where she told the commission she serves no man.

The top lawyer came before the commission to testify on decrees the AFPRC junta ruled by between 1994 and 1996. She held the role of acting attorney general when the bad laws were being created.

Today, she told the TRRC she did not consider Yahya Jammeh as her boss when the TRRC lawyer Sagar Jahateh suggested it.

“Yahya Jammeh found me in government. I was the solicitor general and legal secretary of my country. I serve no man, I serve my country. So he was not my boss,” she told Jahateh.

Jahateh however pressed she wanted to know under what circumstances she reported to Yahya Jammeh who was chairman of the junta after she had returned from her trip.

“Because as acting attorney general at that time, you were a government minister working with the executive. My understanding is, correct me if I’m wrong, but you reported directly to the president who was the chairman at the time,” Jahateh pressed.

“The chairman was not president. The chairman was the person who usurped the authority of president. But he was de facto in charge, and that’s what military governments do. They take over and my the dent of their arms, they take charge of the country,” Bensouda responded.

An unrelenting Jahateh pressed again: “Before he took charge, there was a president sitting in his seat, so to speak. And when he took charge, he replaced President Jawara. And as acting attorney general, my question was whether you did not report to him?”

Bensouda replied: “If by reporting, I take instructions from him? Yes I did take instructions from him.”

“Where you also answerable to him?” Jahateh then asked.

Bensouda replied: “Yes, I was answerable to him. He made me answerable to him.”

She will later testify on the decrees that were passed while she was acting attorney general.

President Adama Barrow has arrived in Sierra Leone to attend the 60th Independence Anniversary ceremony of the country.

The president arrived at the Lungi International Airport Monday afternoon, according to the country’s ministry of information.

Police have arrested 18 people amid their new clampdown on crime in the country.

Police over the weekend said their Anti-Crime Unit during patrols “arrested 18 suspects and recovered dangerous knives”.

“Similarly, Patrol Teams of West Coast Region arrested 9 suspects with quantities of suspected drugs,” police said in a statement.

Police said today the 13-year-old boy who went missing in Gunjur drowned in a pond near Berending.

Police in a statement, said: “The Inspector General’s Office hereby informs the public that it has received a report of the missing of Malang Jarju, a 13 year old boy on the 23rd April 2021 at Gunjur Police Station.

“An investigation was opened into the matter of the missing child and search conducted in collaboration with parents.

“On Sunday 25th April 2021, it was discovered that the boy had drowned and the body was recovered from a pond around Berending village.

“The Police are working with family members for necessary actions in handling the situation.

“Community members, parents and care givers around the quarry where this pond is situated are urged to be vigilant and employ due care by not allowing children to go swimming at the pond.

“The cooperation and understanding of the public particularly residents of the area around the pond, is highly solicited.”

Lower Baddibu MP Alhagie Jawara has said President Adama Barrow’s chances in Baddibu are great as his triumph there in the December poll could go up to 80%.

Jawara stated this during an exclusive interview with The Fatu Network.

Baddibu is typical a UDP stronghold but Jawara said the table has now flipped.

“The only places NPP may not do well is Salikenni and Njaba Kunda but the president will score at least 80%,” Jawara said, adding “those saying President Barrow is not popular in Baddibu do not know Baddibu”.

Gambians will go to the polls this December to choose a new president, the first presidential election since the overturning of former President Yahya Jammeh’s dictatorship.

President Barrow will seek re-election in the election.