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Momodou
Denmark
11803 Posts |
 Posted - 11 Sep 2006 : 22:39:10
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ASPIRING MIGRANTS SUE AGENT
By Yaya Bajo
Ebrima Ceesay, an agent for over a hundred people who were trying to reach Spain through the Canary Islands by a makeshift boat, was dragged into court last Friday by four of those aspirant migrants, claiming a sum of D40,000 each, paid to him as being the price for the journey to Spain. The migrants sued the agent following their unfortunate return without finding their way to the Canary Islands, after spending eleven days in the ocean, searching for the route to Spain without success.
According to the would be immigrants, they demanded their monies upon their return but the defendant, Ebrima Ceesay, refused to surrender their monies to them. Lawyer Mboge, Counsel for the defendant submitted that the defendant cannot be blamed for their (migrants) miserable voyage because he (Ceesay) had performed the contract. “My lordship, there was performance on the side of my client and the intending migrants were unable to find their way and had to return,” he further submitted.
In his intervention, Magistrate Moses Richards of the Bundung Magistrate Court, ruled that the matter depends on the terms of the contract agreed upon by both parties. He added that he did not want to bring the case into its legal aspect as it does not have any policy that binds it because it is new in The Gambia. “It has no legal binding. It is just like people who entered into fraudulent visa application processes,” he maintained. “Anyway for this case, I believed there was performance because they (the complainants) have boarded the boat and set sail by spending two weeks on the waters and later returned. He further stated that the defendant had discharged the obligation of the contract, but that he was quick to sternly warn the defendant to desist from such clandestine business, because it is illegal.
Magistrate Richards further stated that the law cannot pursue the defendant if he had earlier on disclosed to the complainants that he was only acting as an agent. He went on to say that if the defendants failed to disclose his position as agent to the complainants he would be liable.
The case was adjourned to 13th September 2006 for hearing.
Source: Foroyaa Newspaper Burning Issue
Issue No. 76/2006, 11-12 September, 2006
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