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| The deputy editor-in-chief of the Daily Observer newspaper has been imprisoned since his arrest in February 2013. |
“The prosecution has failed to prove their case
against the accused persons and I finally exonerate both accused persons,”
Justice Emmanuel Amadi ruled on September 3, 2014.
Jobe has
from the beginning of the trial in March 2013 denied allegations of ‘making an
act with seditious intention’, ‘seditious publication’, ‘possession of
seditious publication’, ‘giving false information to a public servant’, and
‘reckless and negligent acts’.
His
co-accused, Bittaye, a former employee of GSM Company Africell, also denied
‘making preparation to do an act with seditious intention’.
The deputy editor-in-chief of the Daily Observer newspaper has been imprisoned since his arrest in February 2013. And he was denied bail three times.
“I have
never planned to do what the prosecution alleged against me, and if I would do
anything with this publication as alleged by the prosecution, they would not
have seen it,” Jobe said when he opened his defence on December 4, 2013.
Their trial emanated from allegations he published
an article on a purported Daily Observer edition of 19 December 2012 claiming a
certain army officer “Major Lamin Touray was on the
run from imminent re-arrest and detention and that he was charged in
absentia for breach of office ethics and code by refusing to take orders in the
executions of some people.”
However, Justice Amadi ruled that the prosecution
did not prove who authored the said article, or produce it, and this crucial
fact is not proven as required by the law that it was recovered from him at his
time of arrest.
He noted that the charged of ‘false information’ is
vague and not specific, and there is no evidence on record to prove the
essential element of the false information. He stated that in any criminal
trial it is the burden of prove lies on the prosecution, and that the
authorship of this alleged document is inconclusive.
Source: The Voice
Edited by Modou S. Joof
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