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Momodou
Denmark
11640 Posts |
 Posted - 27 May 2011 : 12:27:56
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Dailynews Editorial: Are we considered safe when our security personnel are killing us?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
It is very worrisome nowadays as more and more suspects who went under security custody would come-out lifeless.
In most, if not all the tragic cases of death of suspects kept under state custody, it is neither as a result suicide nor have they succumb to illness. Rather, it is their captors who have and/or are being alleged of killing them.
The case of the four personnel of Police Intervention Unit and five National Drug Enforcement Agency who are facing (separate) murder trials for allegedly killing a suspect of a motor-bike thief and an illicit drug dealer respectively send a terrifying message to the public.
The Daily News is not in anyway making a conclusion that Dembo Sibi and Suwareh, for instance, were murdered by their suspected killers. Since both cases are before the law courts, we are obliged to wait for the outcome and not to hold anyone responsible.
However, recent happenings at various state detention centres ranging from the police to the anti-narcotics invites a fundamental question: are we safe if our security personnel who are mandated to protect us, instead hurt us?
In any country, The Gambia included, the public relies more, if not exclusively, on the services of the state security for the protection of their lives and properties.
How could mere suspects walk into the police net alive only to be found dead.
It is clear that in many cases, accused persons are kept away for their own security. However, if those places turn out more terrible, then something urgent needs to be done to remedy the situation.
It is fundamental in criminal legal practice worldwide that suspects be presumed innocent unless proven otherwise by a court of law.
In the case of The Gambia, something seems to be fundamentally wrong somewhere. Whether it has do with the sort of training or attitude of individual servicemen or both, The Daily News could not say for certain.
But whatever the problem is, it is about time that we diagnose and work towards remedying it, as a country that is claiming to be one of the most peaceful.
Our security institutions are constitutionally mandated to protect our lives and properties and not to do otherwise.
It is not our wish to rekindle the old wounds, but certain cases of brutality of our security forces in the past need to be highlighted for the public to have a broader picture of how worrying the practice has become.
Bakary Jarju, a bakery worker in his early eighties was arrested by the police as a suspect and died of what the court confirmed as maltreatment in trying to make him confess. The police officers involved were arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced.
How about the Ebrima Barry case? Again in the same Brikama, where the poor school boy met his death after a severe torture unleashed on him by some fire servicemen. This incident would result to the death of over a dozen of other students who mounted protests demanding justice. April 10 is what we are referring to here.
Source: Dailynews
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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