Bed-ridden Tycoon Denied Family Access

NIA DG Yankuba Badjie

National spy agents have reported to have denied the detained bed-ridden tycoon access to his family.

Alh. Kebba Touray is among hundreds of people currently being detained in a country that marked 50 years of nationhood last week.

“The Golden Jubilee celebration means nothing to anyone denied due process or justice,” one man groaned in Banjul. “Independence is all about attaining freedom but we lost that freedom since 1994. Our founding fathers did not fight so their sick offspring be detained arbitrarily,” he said, referring to the case of Mr. Touray who remains illegally detained at the National Intelligence Agency headquarters in Banjul. The Banjul native tycoon has so far spent a month in state custody.

In a dramatic twist, spy agents have now denied Mr. Touray access to his family, which also violates his constitutional rights in an independent Gambia. “We have not been allowed to see him, let alone provide him food and clothing,” a close family source told Kairo News.

The Gambia government remains tight-lipped on the current wave of illegal arrest and detention, especially after the December 30th failed coup d’etat. Families of detained relatives have not been informed about the reasons. All these desperate families have been searching for answers but without success.

Mr. Touray’s family is deeply worried about the frailing health condition of a man who has been bed-ridden for six months.

This is the second time Mr. Touray is having a brush with the goverment. In 2009, he was briefly detained shortly after Lt. Gen. Lang Tombong Tamba, the former Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) of the Gambia Armed Forces (GAF), and the others were detained for attempting to dislodge President Jammeh from power. 

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