The deputy speaker of the National Assembly on Thursday explained at the magistrates’ court in Kanifing how she discovered that her jewelry worth over one million dalasi was allegedly stolen.
Hon Fatou Mbye’s vanity box went missing since September 2010. A woman called Ida Kumba Drammeh, a neighbor, who is said to be close to the family is suspected to have stolen the said jewelry.
She is undergoing trial for theft at Kanifing Magistrates’ Court presided over by Fatou Drammeh.
In her testimony, the deputy speaker said she went on a trip alongside The Gambian vice president to Senegal and then to Nigeria in September 2010.
She said she was informed about her missing vanity box when she returned from Lagos, Nigeria, adding that her husband had already reported the matter to the police.
Madam Mbye said she called a meeting in the compound in the presence of the accused person, but no one surrendered what she believed was stolen.
The former women’s leader said she came to know the accused in 2009, when a group of women came to her house to enquire about how they could partake in the Beijing +15 meeting held in Banjul.
“After giving them advice, a women’s association was setup called ‘Jilinka’, and they adopted my husband as father and myself as mother,” she explained in court.
According to her, the association conducts regular meetings at her house and the accused person would voluntarily help in some domestic works in the house.
She said Ida Drammeh became close to the family and she was like an adopted daughter.
“I was sending her into my bedroom just as I would send my daughters,” she said.
The case resumes May 10, 2011.