The councilor for Bakau Ward is reportedly held in detention at Sare Ngai police station in the Upper River Region of The Gambia.

Lawyer Ousainou Darboe yesterday informed the high court in Banjul that Ousman Rambo Jatta is currently detained at Sare Ngai and therefore filed an application to secure his release as well as that of Mr. Kanyiba Kanyi. Mr. Darboe informed the court that the state is now denying knowledge of the arrests and detention of both Jatta and Kanyi.

According to Darboe, it was the former secretary of state for the interior, Baboucarr Jatta, who told an inter-party committee meeting with the IEC that he ordered the arrest of the two. He pointed out that it was an indisputable fact that Jatta and Kanyi were in State custody, adding that there was a gross violation of the Constitution of The Gambia.

Lawyer Darboe posited that the onus of protecting the Constitution of the land lies on the attorney general’s office, saying that the police are directly under the interior department that ordered the arrests. He stated that though the NIA is not directly answerable to the interior department, Kanyiba Kanyi was arrested by agents of NIA at Baboucarr Jatta’s behest.

Darboe revealed that Ousman Rambo Jatta has been in detention since 23 September of last year whilst Kanyi is being detained since 18 September of the same year and therefore sought an order for their immediate release.

Responding to Darboe’s submission, the Director of Public Prosecution, Emmanuel Fagbenle, explained that the respondent in the matter had filed an affidavit before the court, disputing the applicants’ affidavit.

According to the DPP, Darboe had admitted that the NIA is not directly under the department of state for the interior, meaning that the appropriate respondent was not in the court. He pointed out that it would be impossible for the office of the attorney general to supervise compliance with a court order directed against an office.

Fagbenle asserted that Darboe was only speaking on assumption as there were no facts to substantiate his argument that his clients have been held by the state authorities. He added that there exists a burden of proving that Jatta and Kanyi are indeed in state custody, saying that this burden has not been discharged at all. He said that the police said the two were not in their custody and therefore wondered how the police can be made to produce something that they did not have. DPP Fagbenle pointed out that the police were not the appropriate respondents, elucidating that when wrong parties are before a court, the application automatically becomes incompetent and therefore irrelevant.