By Mama A. Touray
The fourth State witness in the trial over the deadly shooting of paramilitary officers on Monday testified before the Banjul High Court that he saw the disassembled weapon that the shooter of the officers had allegedly used.
Witness Lamin Fofana,23, adduced that he was sitting on a fence after performing his dusk prayers at a mosque when he saw his uncle, Adama Jobe, in hot pursuit of someone. He testified that his uncle had told him that the individual he was pursuing was a thief. Fofanasaid it was then that he pelted the individual with a stone, who also attempted to throw something back at him but that the projectile hit a fence after he bent down to sidestep it.
“I ran after him but could not catch him,” Fofana testified.
He explained to the court that he had to abandon the chase because his door wasn’t locked.
“When I got back to where I was sitting, I saw a gun,” he added.
Asked where the gun came from, the witness said it came from the person who threw it at him. Fofana further testified that when he saw the gun, he picked it up and threw it at an empty land opposite his compound.
Quizzed by defense counsel Lamin J. Darboe as to whether the gun was dismantled when he found it, the witness responded in the affirmative.
The witness said the alleged shooter wore a kaftan but said he could not tell which color.
The Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) A.M Yusuf asked Fofana if he could remember how the person, he chased, looked like but the defense counsel objected to this question, insisting that the query was a leading question. The trial judge Justice Ebrima Jaiteh then permitted the DPP to rephrase his question and when he did, counsel Darboe objected again, saying the question was more leading than the previous one. The DPP, however, insisted that there is a difference between description and recognition as, according to him, the witness said he saw the alleged shooter even once.
The witness said he could not recognize the individual, adding that when he picked up and threw the gun at the empty plot just in front of his compound, he informed his boss AnsumanaTunkara, who advised him to be quiet about it and would send over someone to pick it. Fofanasaid his boss sent over someone on a Friday to collect the gun.
The witness said he could not tell the caliber of the gun because he did not know the gun.
He testified under cross-examination that his statement was obtained on a Friday but quickly added that he couldn’t remember the exact Friday.
The statement was tendered, admitted into evidence, and marked as an exhibit. The case resumes today.
