Another alleged paedophile accused of abducting and raping an eight-year-old girl has regained his freedom after bungling police officers failed to collect crucial evidence.
Pa Omar Keita of Brikama was arrested in March 2016 for allegedly kidnapping and raping the eight-year-old in Brikama Madina Pipeline, West Coast Region.
However, after his arrest, bungling police investigators failed to collect his bedding to confirm the presence of any semen traceable to the accused and, or the blood stains traceable to the victim.
During the trial, the court heard that a doctor who examined the girl had failed to reveal in his medical report to the police whether the she suffered any bleeding or had traces of semen inside her.
Deciding the case at the Hight Court in Banjul, Justice Ebrima Jaiteh said the failure of the police to examine Keita’s bedding and the inconclusive medical report has cast a shadow of doubt in his mind whether it was the accused person who raped the victim.
“Where there are doubts in the mind of the court as to whether or not it was the accused that committed the offence; such doubts should be resolved in favour of the accused,” he said.
“The prosecution failed to prove the charge of rape beyond reasonable doubt against the accused. It is a settled law that where the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond any reasonable doubt, the accused was entitled to an acquittal.”
Justice Jaiteh added that the prosecution has failed to provide any evidence or witnesses that Keita had kidnapped the eight-year-old.
Keita is the second man accused of canal knowledge of a child to be freed by the courts this year. Last month, Momodou Lamin Jammeh of Tallinding who was accused of raping a one-year old toddler was acquitted by the court after police failed to take his DNA sample to link it to the traces of semen found inside the girl.
If the man cannot be found guilty then his innocence must be presumed.
But look now those Gambians in denial in our recent heated debate/ Must look again. Until and when Gambia’s law enforcement Must be trained to a standard that conforms with known procedure in such difficult cases.
Dr Sarr and Bax were right.
The others>>>>> I shake my head, how can you say such awful deeds are not going on with minors ?
Mike,
You are no amateur when it comes to twisting around the narrative of issues. Bax indeed implied, to my understanding in short, that he doesn’t dispute, an eight year old can be a victim of paedophiles in the Gambia, especially in its touristic areas but, didn’t agree too, that Gambian societies and people at large could be passive or complacent to such crimes, ‘subcultures’ to be a bit more precise.
I, from my tender age have heard of every kind of horrible news on the Radio Gambia at least once of every kind but I wouldn’t agree that does make Gambia synonymous or a safe haven of such crimes and criminals respectively. My questions are: Does all those daughters’ and sometimes sons’ daily headline makings, telling on their parents’ sexual abuse of them as children, make Britain a country of incest and paedophlia? Please don’t be evasive by claiming I’m the one trying to be evasive about the fact something terribly bad is going on in the Gambia! And again, if you might ever think those Gambian girls as young as fifteen or less are being forced into marriage, what about girls as young as twelve getting pregnant in Britain, obviously out of wedlock? And who are the parents to these particular children? We do need to talk about serious issues and serious crimes taking place in the Gambia but rationally doing so is by no means an attempt to exonerate those culprits from their crimes against the innocent children of the Gambia. Gambia had never once been a holy land as far as I know but had gone even farther to the south of holiness when Captain T James took charge of the cockpit, a fact you Mike should be able to see for yourself. During his grip on the livelihoods of well reserved Gambians, came a surge in psychopaths of all kinds, assassins, highway holdups barbarians, and etc.
In my view, when we engage in such serious issues, we want to help in the successful resolve of such crimes, but by making such crimes simply look like a part and parcel of the Gambia’s system of livelihood, means nothing but a contemptuous approach to normalise such crimes and to exonerate such criminals and their accomplices of their horrendous crimes.
Weren’t you there in the same type of debates 3-4 years ago when participants alleged a rampant abuse of underage girls and extra marital affairs in Kaninlai and around the Jammeh inner circle hotspots around the country? Then, you’d rather beat around the bush somewhere else. There shouldn’t be anything like; ”my enemy’s enemy is my friend”, here in these forums. These comments here in these forums I guess, are divergence or convergence in opinions and views that shouldn’t be meant for nothing but to sharpen our common senses of reasonings.
Going back to matter nevertheless, it is sad indeed that paedophiles can be left to walk around in the Gambian communities free, posing a very great danger to the Gambian children. A well advanced forensics department of the Gambia police is urgently worthwhile. And, bribes taking or giving, that may involve personnel of the country’s judiciary systems, all other public officers of public offices and institutions and the civil society as a whole, to obstruct justice, in order to favor or abuse the rights of other citizens, should be a highly punishable crime of a minimum of five years jail term.
I stand falsely accused; The reasons do not require me to explain.
Dr Manneh, Jack, Gambian, Bourne and Natty Dread should have the guts to apologize.
But you know what>>>I don’t really care.
Thankyou Bax and Dr Sarr.
I am totally convinced no apologies are due from either me, Jack, Gambian, Bourne and Natty dread. In fact, I endorse Jack’s brilliant posting, which is much more objective than your baseless claims. Please re-read my postings in their totality on this issue. The undersigned has indeed never denied that both abuse of maids and pedophilia exist in Gambian society – just like in any other society in the world. It is your baseless claim that it is “a Gambian thing” that I disagree with in that your theory as to possible causes is far from watertight. The fora in which you observed the phenomena are clearly sub-cultures that exist side-by-side with mainstream Gambian culture. I have so far not met a sane person who derives fun from subjecting eight year old girls to such a traumatic experience. Similarly, maltreatment of domestic servants in the country could just as well be a fact of life in a minority of cases in the country since there are many positive stories out there regarding Gambian families who treat their maids decently. However, until such time as there emerges research data that claims to the contrary, I am of the view that it is utterly unenlightened to advance generalized theories about its prevalence in The Gambia. Not least, since the perpetrators of such crimes must by all indications be suffering from one form of psychiatric disorder or another.
My definition of an enlightened person is inter alias one who readily concedes defeat in the face of powerful counter-arguments from the other side of the trench. Going by this definition, I am convinced readers will agree with me that the above-mentioned persons as well as the undersigned must be more enlightened than Mr Scales since the latter has so far failed to concede defeat in spite of the weaknesses of his case.
As to the incompetence manifested by the Police in this case, I am of the view that it is about time we separated the office of the “public prosecutor” from the former. Thus, the Police can concentrate their efforts on investigating crimes whilst the former concentrates on prosecuting cases before the courts. This separate office of public prosecution shall be accorded the competence to direct the Police to undertake investigations into specific aspects of individual cases,
aimed principally at averting a recurrence of such blatant incompetence. Division of labour between them if you will. Plus better training of our Police officers and equipping them accordingly. This is what Scandinavians, Germans, Brits, etc. have done with great success in the past decades. Better late than never.
Mr Manneh, Thank you for agreeing with me in substance if not in spirit. But why didn’t you say this in the first place ?
Your full of ” shit” my friend.
Your full of the exuberance of your own verbosity.On this forum all are equals.
I thank Mr. Scales for conceding defeat in this case: Indeed, we basically see eye to eye. However, some unfortunate “noice” had for some reason or other occurred in the communication process. I am therefore thrilled that the concrete misunderstanding in this case has been resolved amicably.
May peace and progress accompany all of you out there henceforth.
Shush Mike be silent; The giant has his false victory.>>>see he sleeps and snorrs unawares that the toubab, walks the watchtower.