By Landing Ceesay 

Assiatou Jallow, a resident of the Casamance town of Bignona, and mother of Momodou Lamarana Jallow (deceased), appeared as the seventh prosecution witness (PW7) in the Kumba Sinyan murder trial before Justice Sidi K. Jobarteh of the High Court and revealed in her testimony what Kumba Sinyan (the accused) told her over the phone. 

Assiatou Jallow told the Court that she is the biological mother of the late Lamarana Jallow, but had never met Kumba Sinyan (the accused) before, except for the telephone conversations they had. 

“Before last Tobaski, my aunty who brought me up was sick. The accused person (Kumba Sinyan) used to call me on the telephone. One day I came home, and my telephone rang. She (Kumba Sinyan) told me aunty Assi, I want you to talk to Lama (deceased). I asked her what am I going to tell Lama? She told me that Lama always communicates with other women on the phone. 

“I told her that even I communicate with men because I work in the market. I told her that my husband communicates with women, but I never complain. She told me that she will do something to Lama that he will never forget. Then I told her that if you do spiritual things to Lama, it will disturb me because he is my only child,” the witness told the court. 

Mrs. Assiatou Jallow also testified that when Lama visited her in Bignona, Casamance, Kumba Sinyan (the accused) called her and asked for Lama (deceased). She told the court that on that occasion, she informed the accused person that Lama had gone out with his younger brothers. 

“She (Kumba Sinyan) then asked me what I have ever told Lama about her. Because whenever she asked Lama to marry her, he (Lama) would always tell her ‘My mother this, my brother that.’ I told her that marriage is not by force. If Allah destined it, Lama would marry you. Nobody can force him to marry you. She said to me, okay, but she can’t leave Lama. 

“The day she did what she did, my son called me crying while I was at the market selling. He told me that, mum, you should come to the Gambia. I asked him what happened, and he told me that Kumba killed Lama,” the witness told the court. 

Kumba Sinyan is charged with murder contrary to section 187 of Criminal Code Cap: 10:01 Revised Laws of the Gambia 2009. 

Prosecutors alleged that the suspect on or about the 14th of September 2022 at The Friendship Hostel in Bakau, with malice aforethought, caused the death of one Lamarana Jallow by cutting his stomach with an object and thereby committed an offence punishable with death under section 188 of the Criminal Code Cap of the Laws of the Gambia 2009.