By Mama A. Touray
Prosecution witness two, a mother to a child who was said to have been allegedly raped by a man (name withheld) has recently testified in the alleged rape trial ongoing at the Kanifing High Court presided over by Justice Isatou Janneh.
PW2 in her testimony said it was the second day of Koriteh in the morning when she wanted to go to the market to buy smoke fish to cook, but the child insisted that she (her mother) should give her the money to go and buy the smoke fish.
She added that her daughter requested to let her go while she try calling her customer to prepare whatever amount she wants so that if she reaches there she will just pick them up and come back.
The witness continued that “She left the house I waited for a while and she did not return, I tried calling my customer (seller) but I could not reach him again, then I sought permission from my husband to go and see what was happening, I entered my room to pick my veil my husband called me and said it seems like she is the one crying. I threw the veil and ran outside and saw her with another woman and the woman asked if am her mother I replied ‘yes.’”
PW2 said she was told by the woman who came with her daughter that a man with a donkey cart collecting waste went to urinate and heard the voice of someone crying and went around to search for what could be happening. In his search, he met a man on top of a child who happens to be her child but the accused ran away and was pursued by the waste collector.
The witness said she later asked her daughter what happened but she could not reply but was crying, she said it is her in-law who told her that he (the accused) is here they apprehended him, and from there they took him to Bakoteh Police Station. She said it is from the police station they referred to London Corner Police Station she (the mother – PW2) was interrogated.
She also told the court that the following day the child complained of pain and she took her to the police station the child welfare officer escorted them to Kanifing General Hospital, where the victim was attended to by a doctor who discovered that the child is wounded at her anus.
“The doctor told us that he will do a further examination on her but the result will take about two days, we went to the station after two days we went to the hospital with the child welfare officer, the doctor asked if I’m the mother to the victim I said yes, then the doctor told me that the further examination conducted on my daughter was to check if there is a sexually transmitted disease on her but the result shows no STI on her,” she explained.
The witness said they were told by the officer that the accused will be with them at the station and that anytime the witness is needed she will be called, and that the police will not leave the matter like this as it will be taken to court.
Meanwhile, Counsel Ahmed Kemo Ceesay in his cross-examining the witness told the court that she has not seen the accused on top of her daughter and that the woman she mentioned did not witness the incident, but the incident was witnessed by the waste collector who entrusted the child with the woman to pursue the accused at Dippakunda.
The witness statement was shown to the witness and she confirmed that it is her statement and the statement was tendered as an exhibit, the court then discharged the witness and adjourned the case to 27th March 2023 for prosecution witness three to testify.
