Essa Faal and Lamin Jobarteh went to war again on Thursday as the former justice minister continued giving evidence to the TRRC.
The duo clashed throughout in a bitter showdown – and part three of their one-to-one saw the two men ruthlessly blast each other.
It began when when Faal told Jobarteh he was trying to readjust himself after he was ‘caught’, suggesting he lied about him not being in the country when Balo Kanteh and others were arrested.
“Mr Jobarteh, your evidence has morphed from ‘I was out of town, I wasn’t here’. Do you deny telling the commission that?” Faal told Jobarteh.
“No I did not but I eventually… Can I finish please? I eventually rectified myself,” Jobarteh replied.
Faal then insisted: “No Mr Jobarteh, you were caught. You were caught on that point with a document which puts you firmly in the country and you tried another one.
“And you tried another one and showed us a stamp in your passport claiming it showed that you were out of the country and I pointed it out to you that the stamp showed that you left Bamako and not Gambia and showed you the stamp that brought you back to Gambia, which meets you in Gambia when this event happened. That is when you considered the point Mr Jobarteh. Isn’t that what happened?”
Jobarteh reacting said: “Anybody could make mistakes.”
“Oh that was a mistake? You see Mr Jobarteh, I can accept…,” Faal said.
But a clearly peeved Jobarteh blasted him, with his eyes wide open: “You see Mr Faal this is your problem, you don’t listen to me.”
Faal then reacted in kind: “Mr Jobarteh this is your problem, you don’t listen to me.”
“Okay then I will not answer your question. I maintain my right,” Jobarteh then told Faal.
Faal in responding said: “You don’t have a right to not answer questions, the right you have is not to incriminate yourself.”
The deputy chair of the investigation then intervened by telling Jobarteh he was obligated to answer questions.
Jobarteh had been testifying on torture he allegedly meted out to former rebel Balo Kanteh.
