By Nicholas Bass
The first prosecution witness in the trial of one Abdoulie Keita over the allegation of issuing a falsified US passport to a certain Mami FatouSallah said the accused was found in possession of a fake US passport, bearing his name.
The prosecution witness ASP Sang B. Mendy,attached to the CID Unit at the police HQ in Banjul,testified before Magistrate Mben Faal that officers from the CIU in December of 2021 launched an investigation after receiving information that Keita had issued a fake US passport to Sallah. The witness said the accused was found in possession of a US passport but that officers doubted its validity.
Officer Mendy adduced that Keita identified himself as a US citizen and staff of the National Security Agency (NSA), deployed to Senegal and overseeing The Gambia. He informed the court that Keita, however, told the investigators that he was neither a US citizen nor a staff of the NSA. The witness further informed the court that Keita claimed that the passport was sent to him by Sallahvia WhatsApp.
”I transferred the picture of the alleged forged American passport from my cellphone to mylaptop and it was printed in hard copy,”Mendy stated.
Mendy said he then wrote to the US embassy in Banjul, seeking verification about the validity of Keita’s “American passport”. The witness stated that the embassy replied on 1 June 2022, to confirm that the document was fake.
The case continues.
Abdoulie Keita stands accused of falsifying American passport with the number 595965794, bearing his name. He is also accused of defrauding and uttering a fake American passport to one Mamie Fatou Sallah
with the number 595965794 bearing his name.