Magistrate Buba Jawo of the Kanifing Magistrate Court yesterday granted one Lamin Ceesay, a court bail in the sum of D100,000  with a Gambian surety.

Mr Ceesay is standing trial  for stealing and giving false information to a public servant contrary to the laws of The Gambia, a charge he had earlier on denied when he took his plea.

According to the particulars of the offense, on count one, Mr Ceesay, some time in December 2006 at Bakau, stole one Mitsubishi vehicle with registration number BJL 4650 D, valued at D195,000, a property of Mr David John Hoults and Mrs Ruth Moistey.

On count two, Mr Ceesay in the same month and year, in Bakau, gave false information to a public servant, claiming that he was the  rightful owner of a Mitsubishi Saloon car BJL 4650 D, thereby causing the police to retrieved the said vehicle from  Mr David John Hoults  and Ruth Moistey.

In his testimony last Monday, David John Hoults, told the court that he met the accused in November 2005 while on holiday in the country.

“At that time we had just moved in to our new house in Brufut.  A guy by the name Abdul Abbas was importing vehicles into the The Gambia and I and my partner purchased a vehicle from Mr Abbas,” he said.

He told the court that since they  didn’t have enough money  he (Mr David) and partner went to a lady in Bakau who borrowed them  D170,000 with 10%interest to buy the said vehicle.

“We paid the money to Mr Abbas which also included clearing the vehicle from the Gambia Ports Authority. I told Lamin Ceesay, the driver,  to take good care of the vehicle as he would also benefits some income. While in the United Kingdom I sent him 4,200 Pound sterling through western Union money transfere to settle the lady we earlier on borrowed money from to pay for the vehicle ,” he told the court.

“The vehicle was purposely bought for the accused to drive on a commercial basis. We returned to the UK and came back in March 2006, and this time round we opened a trust savings account for him to save money he got from the car on a daily bases. Between the months of January to March 2006, Lamin Ceesay made four deposits in the sum of D20,000,” he told the court.

At this point, a trust bank savings account was then tendered in court and marked as an exhibits.

Continuing his testimony, Mr John Hoults further narrated to the court that in the middle of April 2006, Lamin Ceesay informed him while he (David) was in the United Kingdom, that he needed a bigger vehicle, to which he (Mr David) replied that he  would be willing to buy it if it’s not  very costly.

He told the court that, the accused informed him that the price of the vehicle was D260,000 .  “I gave the said sum to one  Mr  Collins Landsford from United kingdom for the purchase of the second vehicle, (Nissan Patrol)”.

He added that in July 2006, an amount of D11,000 was deposited into their savings account.  “When we came to The Gambia , we began to suspects that Lamin was becoming more lazy. My partner then decided that since we did not have enough money in our account, we needed to sell one of the vehicle,” he said.

According to him, a  British national, by the name Mr Howard then expressed interests in buying one of the vehicles to which the accused also agreed. I also suspected that we had only little money in our account while the accused’s wallet was always full of money,” he told the court.

According to him after their return to the UK, Mr Howard, the British experts who was supposed to buy one of the vehicles called him  to informed him that the accused came there with police demanding the vehicle, saying that the said vehicle was his own. The case was at this juncture adjourned to February 13, 2008. Lawyer LB Mboge appeared for the accused, while Inspector Touray respresented the state.