The complainant’s mother in the rape trial of Bubacarr Keita has told the high court in Bundung her heart raced suddenly after her daughter undressed in front of her.
The businesswoman testifying in the trial for the third time on Tuesday said she asked her daughter to undress so she could bathe her with some elixir given to her by a traditional doctor.
She told Judge Momodou SM Jallow: “Since I was told she was collapsing in school, I got her medicine for that. So when she undressed, I looked at her and my heart raced.”
The woman added when asked by prosecuting lawyer Alasan Jobe if she undressed completely: “She only had her underwear. I then asked her ‘what happened to you?’ She said ‘nothing happened to me’. I told her ‘you’ve changed, looked at how your breasts look’.”
The woman testified that she her daughter’s breasts looked different which could not be known when she was wearing her school uniform.
She said: “The way I saw her breasts, you could not know if she wore her uniform. But when she undressed and I saw the breasts, I was suspicious and asked her ‘where did you get these breasts from.’ And when one is experienced in something, you tend to know about it when you see it.
“I then continued asking her. I told her ‘let’s enter the bathroom for me to bathe you since you said nothing has happened to you’. When I bathed her, I asked her to dress up as it was dusk already. The following day in the morning, I asked her to undress so I could bathe her again. After I bathed her and she came out [of the bathroom] and stood, I told her ‘since yesterday I’m asking you and you said nothing is wrong with you’.
“I then asked her ‘when did you last see your period?’. She told me ‘I do see my period every month’. I asked her ‘do you see it in a normal manner?’ She said ‘yes I do see it but what I see is usually not much’.
“I then told her ‘come and lay on the bed so I could check you’. When she laid down, I touched her stomach and saw that the stomach has something like a rock inside. I touched it again and felt something that appeared to be breathing. I told her ‘you’re pregnant’. She told me ‘no’. I asked her to get up. She got up and sat. “
Earlier on, the witness explained that it was her daughter’s French teacher who advised her to take her daughter to a traditional doctor.
“Because she was collapsing in school and if she falls it’s as if she is possessed by an evil spirit,” the witness said. When asked by the prosecuting lawyer if she heeded the teacher’s advice, the witness said she did.
On what further steps she took regarding her daughter’s illness, the witness said she got “traditional medicine she could bathe with”.
She said the issue of her daughter collapsing started in her school and that she asked her older daughter to asked the driver to bring her sister to her (mother) house instead.
“When they (driver) took her from school, [older daughter] said she should be taken to her house but I said they should bring her to my house,” the witness said.
“You said in the last sitting you already took her to a doctor and now you have said that you also treated her traditionally. Tell us whether you saw any improvements?” the prosecuting lawyer Alasan Jobe asked her elsewhere.
“When we took her to the hospital, she was given medicine. She spent days taking the medicine, felt better and returned to school. She went back to school and after a few days, she collapsed again,” the witness replied.
