The Gambia Bar Association on Wednesday, 7th July 2007, organized a valedictory ceremony at the Corinthia Atlantic Hotel, in memory of late Lawyer Ousman Batchilly, a Gambian legal titan who passed away on 31st March this year.

In a brief speech at the solemn ceremony, Lawyer Fafa E. Mbai paid a glowing tribute to the late Lawyer Batchilly, praising what he termed his doggedness and sterling contributions to the judicial sector.  He recollected that he first met the late Ousman Batchilly in 1970 when the latter was the Commissioner of the then MacCarthy Island Division, now Central River Region. He added that over the years he came to know him as a very wise, intelligent, warm, compassionate and dedicated person who was both light-hearted and at the same time deeply serious and earnest in his approach to work, as well as in his work relations with people of all walks of life throughout. He went on to wish the family of the deceased well, adding that he had no doubt that Musa, the son to the late legal luminary, would carry on from where their ‘noble friend and brother’ has left.

For her part, the president of the Gambia Bar Association, Mrs. Amie Bensouda, said that late Lawyer Ousman Batchilly, affectionately addressed by many as Koto Batchilly, lived his life as a legal practitioner, a father and a gentleman of great courtesy and kindness, who shunned confrontation and arrogance; an intensely private man who lived his life in simplicity.

She said: “While we mourn his death and offer condolences to his family, and in particular to his son and our learned colleague Musa, we also celebrate his life as a colleague at the Bar, a successful legal practitioner and, most importantly, as a fellow traveller who lived a full and useful life to himself, his family, his country, and indeed to his fellow man.”

The Solicitor-General and Legal Secretary at the Attorney General’s Chambers, Dr Henry Darlington Richmond Carrol, a leading human rights lawyer and consultant, also delivered a powerful and soul-touching speech at the occasion.