Kaddy Samateh has accused respected police prosecutor Almameh James Manga of insulting her mother and detaining her unlawfully.
Kaddy Samateh is the mother of the one-month-old baby who etched her name in history by having her baby by her side in jail following her May 2016 arrest and detention.
She charged police officer Almameh James Manga of detaining her unlawfully when she appeared before the TRRC on Wednesday.
“We were going to court at Kanifing but we later got bailed. It was in the night at 9pm. After we got bailed, I went home. One day, I forgot whether it was a Monday or Wednesday, they called and said we should go court.
“When we went to court, when the session was over, Almamo Manga he is a police at headquarters, said to us, ‘enter the vehicle’. I said to him, ‘where are you taking us?’ He insulted by mother. They put us in a vehicle and we went all the way to headquarters and they brought us down there. He is at headquarters. He wears a white shirt and a blue trousers,” she alleged.
According to Mrs Samateh, it was six of them who got put in a vehicle and taken to the police headquarters.
“It was myself, Lili Bojang, Famata Sarr, Amie Bayo, Baby Aisha and Isatou Saidy. We were the ones put in a vehicle and taken to headquarters,” she told the TRRC.
Asked whether the judge was aware of this, she said: “No, he was not aware.”
“I couldn’t do anything about it,” Samateh said when asked how she felt about her mother being insulted.
Samateh claimed they were then made to sit in a cell when they got to the police headquarters by Manga.
“He (Manga) didn’t tell us anything. We were sitting there for long and he got up and came and called Isatou Saidy, Famata Sarr, Amie Bayo and they released those people. Myself Kaddy Samateh, Baby Aisha [and] Lili Bojang, he close the cell door and left us there,” she said.
“It was pleasing to him, since he said we were the UDP headstrong and they knew my husband,” she said when asked why she thought they were not released alongside the other women.
In describing the cell she was put in, Samateh said: “It was a tight cell with a door. It had a small hole.”
She also told the TRRC: “We were inside, Baby Aisha was crying. Someone was passing and heard her crying and said, ‘Oh, there’s a baby crying here’. He found a policewoman there and said to her ‘there’s a baby crying here, who put the baby here’. She told him, ‘it’s Almamo Manga, he is in his office’. The person went to him and told him if this was your child you would not have done what you did.”
When asked how she knew about this conversation as she was locked inside a cell, she said: “It was when I came out that that person told me that, he is friends with my husband but I forgot his name.”
‘I hope they do’
Superintendent Manga has dismissed the allegations and told The Fatu Network he is ready to go to the TRRC to set the record straight.
“I hope they do [contact me],” he said.
He then explained: “They were not acquitted and discharged by the magistrates court, they were merely discharged.
“The state counsel at the time called me to say that these people are going to be discharged today and we want them re-arrrested, that there is a charge against them at the high court. So that’s basically what happened. They were not acquitted and discharged by the magistrates court.
“When she was arrested, she was with her baby, all along she was with her baby detained at the PIU. I don’t work at the PIU, I don’t know what happened at the PIU, I only met them at the court and then when I saw her with the baby, I asked her ‘whose baby is this’, she said it’s her baby. I said ‘but the baby was not arrested’. The baby wasn’t even charged and she said the baby was charged which is a big lie. The records are there, you can go to the Kanifing Magistrates Court and see for yourself. We told her to give the baby to a family member and she said no.
“Our job is to arrest her and take her to Banjul. We arrested her and we came to Banjul. At the Banjul Police Station, we told them that these people have been re-arrested, their matter is to be heard at the high court now, so you keep them here. I never saw this lady again and she even confirmed that.
“When she asked, I told her ‘we’re going to Banjul’, that’s all. To insult a lady? Anybody who knows me knows that I don’t use those words. I do not curse people who are even younger than me let alone a woman. She was not fighting with me, I don’t insult people. That is not my character. If you have the opportunity, ask all of them Nogoi Njie and others [about me] and keep quiet, listen to their stories. I did not prosecute them, they were prosecuted by the state counsel. And even Darboe himself if you ask him.”
“Which police officer is that? If at all what I did was wrong, I was just an ASP at the time, what did the authorities do to take action against me or to release them?” Manga said of charges a police officer confronted him over the act.
