One Ebrima Camara, who reportedly claimed to be endowed with special spiritual and mysterious powers, locally called marabout, was on 6th March, 2008 sent to prison by senior Magistrate Abdoulie Mbackeh of the Kanifing Magistrates Court for stealing.

In the course of trial before Magistrate Mbackeh, the charge sheet stated that on 2nd October 2007 at Pipeline, the defendant stole from one Mariama Touray and Binta Jammeh a Nokia mobile phone valued at D15, 000.00, cash of D1, 105 and a pair of shoes valued at D250. Mr. Camara denied the allegation.

During the trial, one of the complainants told the court that the accused had informed her that she would be haunted by demons unless she broke an egg at a junction as charity. She testified that the accused further told her that unless she carried out his bidding, ill luck would be her lot, adding that she became scared and went out to do as she was told.

She stated further that on her return to the accused’s place, she was shocked to find out that he had vanished with her bag containing D1, 105.

In his judgement, Magistrate Mbackeh sentenced the accused to one year imprisonment with hard labour and ordered him to pay a compensation of D6, 355.00 to the complainants to cover the cost of items and cash stolen from them, in default to serve six months imprisonment with hard labour.

In the event that the accused was unable to meet the said compensation, then the sentences would run consecutively.