Burama Dibba discharged

Burama Dibba, a former crime management coordinator (CMC) of the Gambia Police Force (GPF) was, yesterday, acquitted and discharged by Senior Magistrate Kayode Olajubutu of Banjul Magistrates Court, following a no-case-to-answer submission by a team of defence counsel.

Mr Dibba was acquitted on the charge of giving false information to a public officer (the then IGP Benedict Jammeh) in 2007, that the director of prisons, David Colley, had fed the carcass of a bull to inmates at the prisons and also diverted a satellite dish, which was meant for the prison department to his personal use.

Handing down his ruling, Magistrate Olajubutu made reference to the two previous sittings, during which the prosecution called in one witness, the director general of the National Intelligence Agency, Mr Benedict Jammeh.  

He said the witness impressed the court as a “witness of truth”.“I am therefore forced to compulsorily lead to the inevitable conclusion that the evidence adduced by the prosecution is a clear testimony of the innocence of the accused,” Kayode Olajubutu told the court, adding that “there has been a charge sheet without evidence”.

He then continued: “It is based on all the above that I concluded that the no-case submission of the defence counsel succeeded in its entirety. The accused is consequently discharged for want of evidence pursuant to Section 166 of the Criminal Procedure Code, Laws of The Gambia.”