2nd Lt. Pharing Sanyang also Claims Torture

Following the testimony of Capt. Yaya Darboe, one of the alleged coup plotters currently on Court Martial, that his statement was not obtained voluntarily but under severe torture, the defence counsel on Saturday called two more witnesses to corroborate Capt. Darboe’s testimony.

The witnesses are 2nd LT. Pharing Sanyang, one of the accused persons, and Mrs. Mariama Bah, the wife of Capt. Yaya Darboe.

2nd Lt. Pharing Sanyang, looking intent on standing by his statement, buttressed Capt. Yaya Darboe’s testimony that he was indeed tortured. Recounting the ordeal which he said he himself had gone through, 2nd Lt. Pharing Sanyang disclosed that he himself had sustained injuries on his hand and head as a result of torture. He maintained that he was stabbed with a bayonet on the hand and severely hit with the butt of a pistol on the head after his arrest.

He narrated that on the 23rd of March 2006, while in his cell, he heard Capt. Yaya Darboe screaming in his cell which, he said, is opposite his. He added that he was able to see through a small opening of the cell door that Capt. Darboe’s face was swollen. He added that when he asked Capt. Darboe as to what was the cause of his swollen face, he said that Capt. Darboe replied that he was severely tortured at the NIA.

In giving her evidence, Mariama Bah, wife of Capt. Yaya Darboe, asserted that the first day she visited her husband at the Mile 2 prisons, she found his eye swollen and, on enquiry, he told him that his swollen eyes were as a result of the torture he had undergone.

She affirmed that after her husband’s many visits to the hospital, the use of lenses was recommended for him as doctors said that there was nothing that could save him from resorting to the use of lenses. She said that two sorts of lenses were recommended, one for reading and the other for long sighting, adding that she bought both for D1,900.00 (One thousand nine hundred dalasis). She further testified that before the arrest of her husband, she had never been aware of any eye problems with him. “So I am saying the torture is the cause of his eye problem,” she stated.

The case was adjourned to October 26th for the Chief Medical Officer in charge of the Eye Unit to come and give evidence and also produce the medical card of the accused persons.