By: Kebba Ansu Manneh
Musa Sheriff, the managing editor, and Momodou Justice Darboe, the senior news editor of The Voice Newspaper Company, are scheduled to appear in court today. This follows the completion of an investigation by the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) of the Gambia Police Force (GPF).
Reliable sources familiar with the case revealed to The Alkamba Times that the SIU has already handed over the duo’s files to the Police Prosecution Unit. The Police are expected to prosecute the journalists before a magistrate court following the Gambia Police Force’s alleged false publication charges.
The two Voice Newspaper editors have been grinding it out with the state and President Adama Barrow’s legal representative following their 23 September 2024 publication, in which the paper reported that President Barrow is working on an exit plan and has already identified Muhammed Jah, the Chief Executive Officer of QGroup Company.
On Wednesday, 25 September 2024, Ida D. Drammeh and Associates, the legal representative of the Gambian leader, wrote to The Voice Newspaper to retract its article on the said publication and also urged the news company to apologize to the President within 24 hours for the damage caused. However, even before the management of The Voice Newspaper replied to the President’s legal team, GPF invited the two journalists for questioning, leading to the detention of Momodou Justice Darboe on Thursday, 26 September 2024.
On Saturday, 28 September, Momodou Justice Darboe was released on bail for D25,000, while his managing editor, Musa Sheriff, was also charged and bailed on Monday, 30 September, for D50,000.
The journalists have since been reporting to the Police until last Friday, when they were said to have been informed by the Police that the SIU had completed its investigation and had passed their files to the Police Prosecution Unit for possible legal actions, which, according to our sources, is likely to take place today.
