Gambia News : Witness confirms Editor Pap Saine was born Gambian
Apr 10,2009 00:00
by
lamin
A prosecution witness in the nationality case involving Pap Saine, the
Co-publisher and Managing Editor-In-Chief of The Point newspaper in
Gambia, on Wednesday confirmed that the journalist was indeed a Gambian
by birth.At the resumed trial of Saine, who is accused of not being a Gambian, witness Dawda Leigh, a birth and death registration officer at the Medical and Health Department, told Magistrate Lamin George that "going by the record on the birth certificate belonging to Pap Baboucarr Saine No:CLR2/289/74, the records tally with the file that in our possession, and going by the hand writing on the birth certificate and signature of the registrar, these are similar to other records in our po s session".
He said: “I conclude that the said birth certificate belonging to Baboucarr Saine is authentic.”
Pap, whose false publication and broadcasting charges in another case were dropped by the state Tuesday, is being accused of being a Senegalese and not a Gambian.
The case was adjourned to 22 April.