Journalist Yaya Dampha reacts to government's statement on Chief Manneh

- Dampha calls Attorney General a 'continental' liar

- Says he saw Manneh in government custody

I read with a heavy heart, the response of the Gambian secretary of state for Justice on the whereabouts of JOURNALIST CHIEF EBRIMA MANNEH.

In fact, judging by media publications home and abroad, it's only the freedom newspaper that brings me to tangible conclusions, because going by what other newspapers write, one tends to have the impression that Manneh was never arrested by the Gambia government. There are living witnesses who were present on that faithful July 6, 2006 when two security agents walked in to the Daily Observer, arrested Chief Manneh and took him to Bakau Police Station. According to those present, Chief Manneh went with the belief that he committed no crime so he would be coming back soon. I have personally seen his bag that he left on his desk the day he was arrested.

Before I took up investigations and writing on the Manneh case for the Foroyaa newspaper, another report, Bubacarr Sowe, was the one our editor Sam Sarr had assigned to go to Daily Observer to confront then managing director Saja Taal with the issue. But Taal was rude with the young journalist and sent him out of his office. It was from that point when I took up the Manneh investigations in my capacity as senior investigative journalist. I started from the Daily Observer, then to Bakau Police Station where I was told Manneh had been moved to the NIA headquarters in Banjul. With the aid of my editor, I made appointments with one Captain Saine, an NIA official to follow up the issue. Paradoxically, this Captain Saine never honored such appointments or even allowed me audience with him.

I was still persistent in getting to the bottom of this matter though. By dint of diligence and thorough search, I laid hand on information that Journalist Chief Manneh had in fact been moved from the State's Mile II central prisons. Then I pursued leads from my sources to establish the fact that he was now at Sibanor Police Station. I visited Sibanor Police Station where a senior police officer informed me that he had been taken to Fatoto.

I proceeded on my search for Manneh. From the village of Sare Ngai where I found other detainees, Master Tamba Fofana and Ousman Rambo Jatta, whose arrest and detention the government had also denied, I proceeded to Fatoto. It was about 2pm in the day when I arrived in Fatoto hence time for lunch in The Gambia. While in the Police Station in Fatoto I saw the security bring Chief Manneh out of his detention spot and served him food. He looked pale and his clothes were raggedy.

Well, seeing him and establishing his whereabouts was all I needed, so to start with. So I rushed to the town of Basse from where I sent a report to my newspaper. My editor, Sam Sarr, called and spoke with me asking that I travel back to Banjul to inform the police Public Relations Officer (PRO) about my findings in regards to the Manneh 'mystery'.

I went to Banjul but was unable to have access to police PRO Azziz Bojang. When I finally succeeded in meeting the Police PRO, I informed him that Chief Manneh was indeed under Police custody and detained at a police station in Fatoto. For what ever reasons, PRO Azziz Bojang refused to comment on the matter. The following week, in January 2007, Foroyaa newspaper went ahead to publish the story on Manneh with regard to my findings, hoping that such publication would trigger a government reaction.

Campaign and advocacy for the release of Chief Manneh had intensified among journalists and human rights activists. T-shirts carrying pictures of the detained journalist with inscriptions: WHERE IS CHIEF MANNEH?, where printed in large numbers as part of the campaign. So on one particular day in June 2007, during a treason trial hearings at the high courts in Banjul, the donning of one of these T-shirts by a particular journalist from Foroyaa cracked a lead to Manneh's latest location. Upon sight of the T-shirt, one of the prisoners told us (journalists) that “This man is in mile II right now”. A month later, in July, Manneh was spotted under police and prison warden escort at the Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital (RVTH).

A colleague, Pa Ousman Darboe and I, later testified before the Ecowas court in Nigeria. Darboe was present when Manneh was arrested. We respectively divulged all these facts before the court.

Now that I've revealed the truth and thus refute the cover-ups of this lair, Attorney General Marie Saine-Firdaus, may I ask her: Did you mean your government cannot release Chief Manneh now because you have killed him? Are you saying that he was never arrested by the State security agents? I could agree with you on the former, but I bet you will receive a double crown as Chief LIAR if you maintain that he was never arrested by the State. Why didn't you come to the Ecowas court to defend the government, Madam Liar? Surely, I would have proven you a lair beyond all reasonable doubts. Consistently, your lies remind me of the late Daba Mareneh when (as NIA director) he stood before the nation and described the late DEYDA HYDARA (a victim of your government's killing spree) as a womanizer and blamed him for his own death. But where is Daba today? Firdaus, your time too is coming. Jammeh is no one's friend.