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Gambia: Five Years Since the Arrest of Hon. Musa Suso
Mbaye B. Sarr & Mohammed L. Sillah
This month is five years since the penal confinement of senior APRC member and National Assembly Member for Kombo North, Musa Suso was sealed in a court in Banjul.
Mr. Musa Suso and a friend, businessman Ndeneh Faal had been convicted for drug related charges and the APRC politician was sentenced to a breath-taking twelve years imprisonment by a Bundung Court earlier that year. Giving Mr. Suso's standing in both ruling party and government; the severity of the sentences naturally shocked the nation and kept everyone wondering what he might have done to displease his bosses further up on the ladder of the structure of the powers that then were. When news of Mr. Suso's arrest by police at Yundum and the discovery of a suitcase of cannabis in the boot of the car he drove, many had thought it was just one of those cases that would soon evaporate into the thin air not to be heard of again.
Musa Suso was not only a popular man in his hometown of Sukuta, and a vote-winner for any party, opposition or incumbent, he was also a man of military background who , it was said, even trained President Yahya Jammeh when they both were members of the paramilitary gendarmes. Musa Suso had resigned from the security service and worked as a private security detail for one of the tourist hotels before the 1994 coup, but soon after, he joined the band wagon unleashed by the AFPRC junta.
He became a founding member of the so-called Committee for The Defense of the Revolution that was later swallowed by Baba Jobe's July 22nd Movement. Apart from his handsome appearance, Mr. Suso is endowed with some down-to-earth approachability and people-skill that won him friends and admirers wherever he went to. Many suspect that his trouble in fact emanated from this trait.
Jammeh had come to power single and unmarried. As head of state, he had to bear with the constant pressure to rise up to the stature of his office and get married from friends, colleagues and close confidants. Musa Suso was one of those constantly prevailing upon him on this matter and was an important architect of the short-lived marriage between the Gambian leader and his former spouse, Madame Tutti Faal.
When the marriage fell apart, Mr. Suso was inevitably one of those who were trying to mend it behind the scenes. This mission took him to Tutti Faal's temporary abode at Latrikunda German, not far from the famous big silk-cotton tree, where she shared apartment with a longtime lady friend. But the place was under twenty-four hour surveillance and the National Assembly Member's visits were being reported to Jammeh. The marriage with Tutti Faal is thought by many to be the young Gambian leader's real first truly romantic affair, and Jammeh was thought never to have forgiven Mr. Suso for the suspicions cultivated in his breast. There must have been many rivals inside the AFPRC establishment who hoped for Mr. Suso's , or for that matter any other highly placed person's exit, in the heated rivalries and infightings that prevailed both in the party and government.
Mr. Suso and Faal were business associates in various types of short-term deals ranging from the import and sale of potatoes, tomato puree, scrap metal, but also probably, drugs. The surveillance meant for Tutti Faal had spilled over to him without his awareness and this might have led to his framed-up arrest with the suitcase of cannabis on the way to the airport.
But even Mr. Suso could not believe that the whole affair was for real. Even after the Bundung Magistrate's Court handed down the heavy sentences, many had thought the whole affair was just for show and that Mr. Suso would soon be released. In the run up to the 2001 Presidential elections, word was let to circulate around in Mr. Suso's Kombo North Constituency that he would be released if President was to win the elections. Many voters in that constituency believed it because Mr. Suso and Ndeneh Faal had filed an appeal at the High Court asking for their release.
But those hopes were dashed when Justice Timothy Kabalata of the high court in his ruling on Monday, November 12th, refused to grant bail to the former Kombo North National Assembly Member, Musa Suso and businessmen Ndeneh Faal who filed an appeal against their conviction at the Bundung Magistrate's Court on drug related offences.
Justice Kabalata noted that section 24, subsection 4 of the constitution of The Gambia which the defense counsel, Antouman Gaye relied upon tantamount to a breach of the same constitutional provision. Further addressing the court, the learned Judge asserted that the appellants in their affidavit filed in a court contested that their conviction by a Bundung Magistrate's court was erroneous and were therefore not satisfied with it.
He said the appellants had also contended that the proceedings of the trial and their convictions were nullified. Justice Kabalata said that the records of the proceedings were bulky with the prosecution calling eighteen witnesses which lasted for a year and that 23 witnesses had testified in the Bundung Magistrate's Court
Justice Kabalata in his ruling stated that the appellants, through their lawyers had urged the court to release the accused persons on bail pending final determination by the court.
He added that when the registrar of the high court earlier testified, he had informed the court that in a criminal offense, appellants were required to pay no fees in terms of processing their application to the court
Justice Kabalata revealed that the registrar at the Bundung Magistrate's Court had also informed the court that after the conviction of Musa Suso and Ndeneh Faal, their file including the judgment manuscript was still with the high Court.
"It is not the procedure of the high court to grant bail to convicted persons, it is done only on an exceptional case, that is , the convicts should show a justifiable reason why they should be granted bail", Kabalata asserted.
In citing a case in Ghanaian law report, Justice Kabalata noted that he had over looked and considered the argument made by both the state counsel Agim and the defense counsels Antouman Gaye and Sheriff Tambedou but had not seen any evidence the appellants had paid records of the proceedings.
He said Section 24, subsection 4 of the constitution cited that the defense counsel could not justify any reason for granting them bail. He therefore refused the bail application filed by the defense counsels and dismissed it.
After the judgment was handed down by Justice Kabalata, some friends and relatives of and sympathizers of Hon. Musa Suso and Ndeneh Faal burst into tears, but Suso however urged them to remain calm.
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