Africa-Press – Gambia. Former registrar general at the Ministry of Justice, Alieu Jallow, has been arrested and charged with contempt of the National Assembly, becoming the second person in just two days to face such charges in the ongoing probe into the disposal of assets belonging to former president Yahya Jammeh.
Jallow was accused of tampering with evidence, providing false and misleading testimony, and deleting crucial files from his laptop just before submitting it for forensic analysis. The forensic team confirmed that files relevant to the investigation were accessed, modified, and some permanently deleted, raising serious concerns about deliberate obstruction of the parliamentary inquiry.
Before making her application for Mr Jallow’s arrest, Counsel Aji Sainey Kah accused him of underestimating the seriousness of the work of the committee and being dishonest.
“This committee has sufficient evidence before it that Jallow has deliberately not been forthcoming with the committee and has given this committee false testimonies and has willfully attempted to mislead the committee as well as tampering with evidence that he was supposed to submit,” Kah said.
She applied under powers given to the National Assembly by the 1997 Constitution, National Assembly Powers and Privileges Act and the Standing Orders of the National Assembly for the committee chairman to grant the application for his arrest.
“I applied for the sergeant at arms to arrest Mr Jallow and hand him to the IGP for custody and further investigation and be cited for contempt and perjury,” she submitted.
Committee Chairman Abdoulie Ceesay granted the application for Mr Jallow’s arrest and also accused him of tampering with evidences in his laptop directly connected to the subject matter of the inquiry including inventory at Farato and Banjulinding farms, inspection visits to properties, internal memos, cattle sales the final report, money on cattle sales and Jammeh properties visit documents. These documents, according to Chairman Ceesay, were accessed, modified and deleted by the witness and consequently ordered for his arrest.
Jallow’s arrest follows that of Adama Jagne, a sergeant at the Kotu Garage and member of the Gambia Armed Forces, who was detained a day earlier for withholding information and tampering with witnesses.
For More News And Analysis About Gambia Follow Africa-Press
