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| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Momodou |
Posted - 17 Jul 2017 : 14:00:57
Building The New Gambia
By Madi Jobarteh
Sheriff and Ndoura Conversation: We Need Assurances and Decisions! Now!
The conversation between Sheriff Tambadou and Ndoura Badgie is despicable, unprofessional and unethical on both parties. Sheriff betrayed sacred professional principles and potentially undermined the course of justice by guiding this lady through the life of this case, rightly or wrongly. He also failed to stand up for the Gambia by failing to put it to Ndoura that indeed the current dispensation cannot in any stretch of imagination be compared to the Yaya Jammeh Tyranny. No amount of friendship should have allowed Sheriff to condone much less agree with Ndoura with such a dishonest and insensitive comment. In any case, Sheriff must now protect what is left of his good family name and personal and professional credibility to apologize to Gambians and humbly resign from the prosecution team.
On her part Ndoura betrayed the sacred humanistic values that underpin friendship and trust. She has betrayed a fine and decent gentleman who had given her space and sympathized with her ordeal. Clearly Ndoura has shown that she is a worse human being who does not deserve the confidence and friendship of Sheriff Tambadou and indeed any decent human being ever again. Ndoura has further demonstrated dishonesty, selfishness and callousness to downplay and ridicule the misery and pain inflicted on Gambians by the APRC Dictatorship in which her husband was a key perpetrator. Contrary to her bluff, Ndoura may not know her husband as she claims because in history torturers live double lives. At work they are monsters. At home they are loving husbands and fathers. Certainly Yankuba will not tell her and her kids how he tortured people and allowed torture and murder to go on under his watch.
That aside, we need to get to the facts in order to move forward. At this stage Pres. Barrow must convene a press conference or issue a statement to speak to the issues raised in this conversation. Is it the intention of himself and his government to do as Sheriff claimed? Barrow needs to speak to Gambians to re-assure us that his planned TRC is not a plan to stifle justice. Therefore he needs to tell Gambians what is his overall plan for exposing truth and dispensing justice for the atrocities of Yaya Jammeh in the past 22 years. This unfortunate conversation has cast doubt on the credibility and integrity of his government and he needs to salvage himself and his government for the purpose of records and posterity.
The Minister of Justice Baa Tambadou faces a fundamental moral question to either resign or not. But like the president, he also needs to re-assure Gambians that he did not share the views expressed by his brother. We need to know if indeed he had told Sheriff that he never wanted this matter to go to court. Hence he needs to clear his name. He needs to tell us how resolved he is to ensure that the course of justice shall remain unshaken and straight.
Minister Tambadou is the one who appointed the Special Counsel Antouman Gaye, who in turn appointed Sheriff. Hence Baa is the source of the platform for which Sheriff’s statements becomes critically important. Being the source of that platform and given that Sheriff is his brother who has attributed very unsavory statements to him, rightly or wrongly, therefore Baa faces a crisis of credibility and reputation. Can he ignore the statements attributed to him as lies and therefore does no warrant his resignation? Or will he consider them to be statements that came from a family member that go to injure national interests under his watch and therefore resign? This is the moral question facing Baa for which history is recording and posterity will judge.
The Special Prosecutor Antouman Gaye must also speak to Gambians on this matter. Did he approve of this meeting? What is the objective of this meeting? Did Sheriff perform as expected or not? Are the views that Sheriff expressed the same views that he and his team of lawyers share? This conversation has therefore raised trust issues on the Special Prosecutor and his team and therefore he needs to speak to the issues urgently in order to uphold their sanctity and reputation. In any case, where Sheriff fails to resign, Mr. Gaye must remove him from his team.
Finally, this conversation speaks to the very nature and direction of this government in terms of ensuring justice for crimes of the dictatorship and the entire system change we require. Ndoura spoke of agents in the NIA giving them information and that no evidence would be found. This raises questions and validates my demand since the first day that the NIA should be closed. NIA is a crime scene. Many of the agents that are still there are intertwined with Yaya Jammeh atrocities hence its continued operation means potentially tampering with evidence. The NIA Legal Advisor Badgie had written a petition to the president in May this year highlighting these issues yet he was only arrested while this crime scene has been left to function as usual.
What therefore is the understanding of Pres. Barrow and his cabinet about where the Gambia came from and where it needs to go? Why should Barrow continue to maintain key public and security officers in their usual strategic positions when those individuals were accomplices in the dictatorship? The necessary cleansing of public institutions and security agencies has not taken place far enough and this explains why a person like Ndoura Badgie could have the audacity to speak in such horrible language and pathetic tone. This is because she knows she has agents in our institutions serving her husband until today.
This conversation therefore is a wake up call for Barrow and his administration to rethink their entire approach otherwise they will woefully fail their people. The maslaha approach must stop and drastic changes need to take place in our public institutions and security agencies in order to ensure a total system change and dispensation of justice. Keeping these aiders and abettors in their same offices is to compromise the course of change and justice. Barrow must realize that this is his government and therefore he has the authority to sack and appoint anyone (without recourse to nepotism or tribalism) that he things can best make him succeed.
I cannot believe that Adama Barrow, Ousainou Darboe, Mai Fatty, Fatoumatta Tambajang, Isatou Touray, Hamat Bah and OJ Jallow including the other Cabinet members can tell us that they do not know that. These people have been active in the Gambia for the past 22 years and they know how this system was working under Yaya Jammeh. Thus how naïve could they be to think that just removing Jammeh means the end of the story. Do they not know that officials and officers in the public and security sectors on a daily basis were facilitating the dictatorship? How therefore could they leave such officials and officers in the same places? Amazing!
God Bless The Gambia
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| 4 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| toubab1020 |
Posted - 20 Jul 2017 : 18:52:08
Letter Received by The Daily Observer:
The Gambia Center for Victims of Human Rights Violations (GCVHRV) has called on The Gambia government to recuse one of the special prosecutors, Mr Sheriff Tambedou from the NIA 9 case.
According to a press release sent to this medium from the GCVHRV, they do not have the confidence that he will represent the victims in an effective manner.
This came after The Gambia Center for Victims of Human Rights Violations were aware of a leaked tape, between one of the special prosecutors, Mr Sheriff Tambedou and the wife of Yankuba Badgie, former NIA director and now one of the defendants (NIA 9) against the Solo Sandeng case.
“We find this reprehensible that a man of Mr Tambedou’s caliber will make such a gaffe,” the release added.
The release went further to urge the government without delay to assign a new credible prosecutor who will have the best interest of representing the government and victims to keep the case moving forward. “Yankuba Badgie’s wife has alleged that, only the Sandeng family has not forgiven their perpetrators and the rest of the victims has (sic); this is a bold-faced false statement. Most of the victims have not even started court proceedings yet or even know the truth behind what happened to their loved ones to even start discussions on forgiveness,” the release stated.
We are also asking the government to investigate the reasons why Mr Tambedou, an experienced lawyer, will reach out to Ms. Ndura on such an important case?
“We the victims are hoping that the government will take these cases very seriously. Getting justice for all victims should be top priority of the Barrow government.”
Yours Sincerely,
Signed:
Maila Touray
ttps://observergm.com/gcvhrv-calls-on-govt-to-recuse-sheriff-tambedou-from-nia-9-case/ |
| Momodou |
Posted - 20 Jul 2017 : 15:28:22
A tape on a conversation between a family member of one of the people in the NIA 9 case and Sherriff Tambedou, a prosecution team member, has been leaked.
In this light, Justice Minister Abubacarr Tambadou, a brother to Sherriff, felt strongly about it and offered his resignation. Having carefully considered the resignation offer, I rejected it because of the trust and confidence I have in his professionalism and integrity in handling his work.
Source: FB, OP |
| Momodou |
Posted - 19 Jul 2017 : 17:36:47
‘I never said to Mrs Badjie the State had no case against her husband’
The Point: Wednesday, July 19, 2017
http://thepoint.gm/africa/gambia/article/i-never-said-to-mrs-badjie-the-state-had-no-case-against-her-husband
Sheriff Marie Tambadou, co-prosecutor in the case of the State vs. Yankuba Badjie & others, has denied telling Mrs Ndura Badjie that the state has no case against her husband, Yankuba Badjie.
Yankuba Badjie, former director general of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), is standing trial with eight other former senior personnel of the agency.
They are accused of conspiracy to commit felony, assault causing serious bodily harm, murder and making false documents among others during the regime of former President Yahya Jammeh.
Lawyer Tambadou, who was secretly recorded in a private meeting he had with the wife of the accused former NIA boss Yankuba Badjie on 5 July 2017 in his office, said he has “decided to withdraw his representation as a co-prosecutor in the case in order to maintain the integrity and focus of the prosecution”.
“I take full responsibility for anything said in the meeting which was not according to my instructions, knowing fully well that I did not say anything illegal or unethical,” Lawyer Tambadou stated.
The following is the full statement of lawyer Tambadou out to set the record straight:
On the 26th May 2017, I was appointed as co-prosecutor in the case of the State VS. Yankuba Badjie & others in Criminal Case No. HC/068/17CR/012/AO).
On the 20th June 2017, a scheduled meeting between all the counsel for the accused persons and the prosecuting team could not take place because Messrs C.E. Mene and E.E. Chime who represent the 1st accused, Yankuba Badjie, were due to travel to Nigeria on that day. I was then assigned the duty of discussing the terms of a plea bargain with all the accused persons through their respective counsel. Before leaving for Nigeria, Mr Chime told me that the 1st accused wanted me to meet his wife, Mrs Ndura Badjie.
After consultations, a colleague in the prosecuting team and myself were assigned the task of meeting the wife of the 1st accused in order to relay the terms of the plea bargain to him. Subsequently, a meeting was scheduled for the 5th July 2017, to be attended by his wife, my colleague and myself.
On the day of the meeting, when the wife was announced by my secretary, I called my colleague to inform the said colleague that Mrs Badjie had arrived, and at the suggestion of my colleague, I went ahead and held the meeting alone with her in good faith, because my colleague had other commitments and could not join us. I relayed the outcome of the meeting immediately on its conclusion. I tried in the best way I could, to relay the terms of a plea bargain to Mrs Badjie.
I did make other statements in the said meeting for which I take full responsibility. I was not instructed to say them and they were simply my opinion. I made the statement that if it was up to the Attorney General, this matter would not have gone to court. This was not based on anything that the Attorney General discussed with me or told me. It was my own opinion based on the press briefing he made in March 2017, when he said that the ministry of justice was not consulted and was unprepared for the case of the NIA 9 to be presented in court at the time.
I never said to Mrs Badjie in our meeting that the State had no case against her husband or that the evidence against her husband is weak. On the contrary, I believe in the strength of the case otherwise I would not have accepted the brief.
I take full responsibility for anything said in the meeting which was not according to my instructions, knowing fully well that I did not say anything illegal or unethical. I regret that our meeting which was supposed to be private was secretly recorded by Mrs Badjie without my consent or knowledge and disseminated in the public domain. I condemn it as totally wrong.
On the 6th July, I received a call around 13:00 hours from Mr Chime informing me of his and Mr Mene’s return. I reported this fact, and was instructed to meet them, which I did in the same afternoon. In our meeting, I informed both of them of my meeting with Mrs Badjie on the previous day.
I have decided to withdraw my representation as a co-prosecutor in the case in order to maintain the integrity and focus of the prosecution, with the confidence that the prosecuting team, even without me, is a formidable one and ably led.
I have practised law in The Gambia for over twenty-five years, and tried, throughout that time to maintain the decorum and ethics of the profession, and the good name of my family. I will not demean myself, my profession, my colleagues or my family. I Thank you.
Signed: Sheriff Marie Tambadou |
| Momodou |
Posted - 17 Jul 2017 : 21:19:56
Senior Lawyer and brother to Justice Minister, Sheriff Tambedou has reacted to audio recording scandal involving him and prosecuted former spy agency chief, Ndura Badjie saying: ' Anyway, I wish to assure you all that I held the meeting on the direction and instructions of the legal team. She just has bad intentions to tarnish me or the prosecuting team but be also assured that I did not say or do anything illegal or unethical. Everything I did was within the law and authorized.'
Below is statement from Lawyer Tambedou!
" Dear members, a few of you have called me to draw my attention to an audio recording of a meeting I held with Mrs Badjie (wife of Yankuba Badji, former director of NIA). I wish to thank those who contacted me for their concerns but I've heard about the recording although I was not aware when she was doing it. Anyway, I wish to assure you all that I held the meeting on the direction and instructions of the legal team. She just has bad intentions to tarnish me or the prosecuting team but be also assured that I did not say or do anything illegal or unethical. Everything I did was within the law and authorised. Thanks for your support."
By Sainey M.K Marenah |
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