By Adama Makasuba
Pap Baboucarr Saine, managing director and co-founder of The Point Newspaper has said that he was under security threat during the 2016 political impasse.
Mr Saine was testifying before the Truth Reconciliation and Reparation Commission on Thursday.
“On January 18 I got a call from the security that said Pap make sure you don’t spend the night in your house. He said they want to come for me,” he told the Commission.
He said he later deserted his house and joined co staff of Reuters at the Baobab hotel, adding while there too his colleague received a call saying the same message and that they left for Senegambia hotel.
Meanwhile, Mr Saine gave a marathon testimony about his arrest and detention by the former regime of Jammeh, saying he was first arrested by the Jammeh regime in 1995 after reporting about a riot in the Mile Two prison.
He said he was called for questioning while making a banking transaction for his trip to Zambia in which he was detained at the Police crime unit.
Mr Saine said he and other two journalists—Alieu Badara Sowe and Ebrima Annis were charged with sedition and false publication but that they were later acquitted and discharged with ‘no case submission to answer.’
He however, he told the Commission that “the next day a Police officer gave me a tip off and said these people are not done with you — you have another case to answer, they want to inquire about your nationality.”
He said he was arrested by Immigration officers and taken to the Immigration department for questioning about his nationality but added that he proved himself to be a Gambian.
He described the action of the former regime as a motive of discouraging journalists from doing their jobs.
Testifying further on the challenges faced by him in 2009 by the former regime, he told the Commission that he was going to multiple Courts concurrently.
But prior to their court case, he said they were detained at the defunct National Intelligent Agency without food and that they were not giving access to bath.
He said while going to court they were remanded at the Mile Two Central Prison by justice Joseph Wowo, describing the Prison condition as terrible and that the remand wing was congested with 45 people.
He said he was arrested along with seven other journalists over publishing a press release of the Gambia Press Union in which he said they were charged with false publication and convicted to two years in prison.