More arrests of prominent personalities, government stays silent

The government of Gambia has released three lawyers and the managing director of the country's largest hotel following their arrest in a weekend sweep which also netted three top-ranking police officers and the owners of two supermarkets in the capital Banjul, police, lawyers and family sources said on Tuesday. A police source told IRIN that Landing Badjie, the Inspector General of Police, and Ousman Jatta, the head of the police Criminal Investigation Unit, had been arrested on Saturday "in order to establish their alleged connection with the illegal sale by some supermarkets of expired goods." Tamsir Jasseh, a former deputy inspector general of police who served as Director of Immigration until 2003, and two Indian businessmen who own Harry's Supermarket and Sony's Supermarket, had also been detained in connection with the same enquiry, the source added. Business sources said the two supermarkets, which were closed briefly by the authorities last year, were owned by Indian businessman SK Watwoni and his brother, who was not named. Meanwhile, all three lawyers arrested at the weekend have been released, along with both the managing director and another director of the Senegambia Beach Hotel, the largest tourist hotel in this small West African country. George Christensen, the husband of lawyer Mary Samba, told IRIN that his wife and Surahata Janneh, another lawyer, had been released without charge on Monday night. Christensen, who owns the Radio One FM radio station in Banjul, said his wife had been questioned about her links with a client whose name he refused to divulge. A lawyer for Baboucarr Camara, a senior official of the Supreme Court, the third lawyer detained on Saturday, said his client had also been released on Monday. Dirk Dathe, the German managing director of the Senegambia Beach Hotel, and Buba Darboe, the hotel's finance director, were also picked up at the weekend and released on Tuesday, Dathe's lawyer, Amie Bensouda, said. "He (Dathe) was released without any charges being brought," Bensouda told IRIN. Government spokesmen have so far declined to comment on the wave of arrests. The Daily Observer newspaper speculated on Monday that they were either connected with the murder of Deyda Hydara, a local newspaper editor, who was shot dead in December, or a corruption scandal.