In her testimony before the Banjul High Court, Amie Sowe claimed that her ex-husband, Yogu Sowe, had chopped off her legs and left hand fingers with a cutlass.
She described the alleged assault by Yogu Sowe (also known as Gorgi Sowe) in her testimony before Banjul high court Justice E. Jaiteh.

“In the middle of the night, in an isolated place where I lived with my children, while I was sleeping, Yogu attacked me with a cutlass and chopped my legs and the fingers of my left hand, which has left me relying on a wheelchair,” Amie testified while seated in her wheelchair; she was accompanied by her children.

You may recall that Yogu Sowe, the accused, has pled not guilty to five counts, including attempted murder, assault inflicting serious bodily harm, deliberate harm, wounding, and domestic violence.

Ami Sowe, the witness, recounted the issues she had in her marriage to the accused, stating that she couldn’t remember how many times he had physically assaulted her.

According to her, everything went wrong after the accused sold her cows and failed to pay her the money.

She claimed she had no idea that Yogu would be able to inflict such misery on her due to their marital problems.

Singhateh, the state’s counsel, questioned the witness’s ability to identify her ex-husband at that hour. The accused was wearing a haftan and a scarf over his neck, and the light in her bedroom was on, so she could distinguish him, she added.

He bolted as I yelled, “Gorgi, why are you attempting to murder me?” after he chopped my leg onto my knee. The haftan he wore was a turquoise hue, neither black nor white.

She went on to say that the accused attacked her after leaving his second wife and children in bed, and that the night of the event, she shifted her sleeping position and put her leg where her head normally rested.

I would still be alive today if he had struck my skull rather than my leg; our conversation would have taken a different turn. The fact that she recognised him was enough to convince her it was him, she said. “I contacted my son after he had fled and summoned him to confront his father about what he had done to me.”

While her son screamed and tried to get help, she warned him not to leave her alone should his father return and chop off her head, as she recounted in court.

Yaya Fandeh and Lamin Kanteh, two of her relatives whom the son contacted through phone, came to her aid, and the police were summoned to transport her to the hospital.

The witness went on to describe waking up in the hospital while receiving a transfusion, being taken for treatment, and soon after, undergoing surgery.

Postponed until June 10, 2024, the case was postponed.