Charges against Pap Saine dropped

Source(AFP) — A Gambian court on Tuesday agreed to drop charges of giving false information against independent newspaper editor Pap Saine after a request from the prosecutor.

"I want to put an application to the court that all charges against Pap Saine relative to false publication and false broadcasting be dropped," prosecutor Kebba Sadire told the court, without offering any reason for the sudden demand. The court granted the application.

The veteran journalist and co-owner of Gambia's last independent daily The Point was due to go on trial for giving false information in a story about diplomats working for the Gambian embassy in the United States being recalled.

Saine, who is also a correspondent for the Thomson-Reuters news agency, still faces charges of obtaining Gambian identity documents under false pretences in a separate case. But observers expect those charges will be dropped as well in the coming days.
In a separate development, the Gambian justice minister assured parliament late Monday that a journalist missing since July 2006 is not in state custody, as charged by human rights organisations.

In a first public reaction to an Economic Community Of West African States court ruling in June last year ordering Banjul to release Chief Ebrima Manneh, Attorney-General and Justice Minister Marie Saine Firdaus said she had no knowledge of the journalist's whereabouts.

"The position of the government of the Gambia has been made clear ever since this issue was raised with my office and the ministry of interior and to the best of our knowledge, information and belief, Chief Ebrima is not in our custody," she said in reply to an opposition lawmaker's question.

Manneh, who worked for the pro-government newspaper the Daily Observer, disappeared after being picked up in the newspaper building by men who said they were with the Gambian intelligence service NIA.

In June of last year, after the case was taken to the regional grouping by a west African media watchdog, ECOWAS ruled that Gambia had illegally arrested and detained Manneh, and ordered his release.

Banjul is preparing an appeal to have the case dismissed on the grounds that the state can only release a person from custody if he or she is in fact in the custody of the state, the minister told the parliament.

Gambia, a former British colony, surrounded by Senegal on three sides, is often criticized for its poor human rights record and heavy-handed restrictions on the media.