Ousainou Jallow suffocated Binta Gassama, 62, in her own bathroom during a robbery in September 2022. Nearly four years later, Justice I. Janneh found his confession reliable, his alibi worthless and the law left her no choice but to sentence him to death. His teenage accomplice has been referred to the Children’s Court.
The High Bundung Court has sentenced Ousainou Jallow to death after finding him guilty of murdering a 62-year-old woman inside her own home during a robbery in September 2022. Ousainou Jallow was convicted yesterday Tuesday, 19 May 2026, by Hon. Justice I. Janneh on two counts murder and robbery in what the court described as an offence of “exceptional gravity.”
His teenage accomplice, Lamin Jammeh, was also found guilty of both offences. Because he was a minor at the time of the crime, he was remitted to the Kanifing Children’s Court for sentencing under the Children’s Act, 2005. He will be held in the juvenile wing of the State Central Prison pending that hearing.
The prosecution established that in the early hours of Sunday, 4 September 2022, Ousainou Jallow and Lamin Jammeh broke into the home of Binta Gassama, who lived alone in the Fajara South Atlantic area of the Kanifing Municipality.
According to the prosecution, the investigation reveals that the two had been out at a nightclub in Senegambia and were returning home when Lamin Jammeh indicated he had a target and led Ousainou Jallow to the deceased’s compound.
They scaled the fence at around 4:00 a.m. and waited inside for several hours. To draw the elderly woman out, they threw stones and charcoal at the gate. When Binta Gassama came out to investigate, they rushed her. When she threatened to call for help, both attacked her, grabbing her neck and the other covering her mouth until she stopped moving after which they dragged her into the bathroom open the shower on her and ransacked her house.
Before leaving, they stole an iPhone, a Samsung phone, a Huawei tablet, a router, a power bank, large headphones, jewellery, a car key, and D600 in cash. The stolen items were sold the same day at the Serrekunda black market for small amounts of money.
The victim was discovered by her daughter, Sally Fiah, on the morning of 4 September 2022. Sally Fiah testified that she became worried when her mother repeatedly failed to answer her calls that Sunday morning. She went to check on her, carrying a plate of her mother’s favourite meal.
When she arrived at the compound in Fajara South Atlantic, both the main gate and the front door were unlocked. Hearing running water, she initially assumed her mother was showering. Instead, she followed water flowing freely across the veranda into the bathroom, where she discovered her mother lying unclothed and unresponsive on the floor, face upward, with a direct stream from the shower pouring onto her face.
A cloth had been placed across the victim’s mouth and nose.
The house was in complete disorder. Neighbours helped move the body to the living room. Binta Gassama was taken to hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Professor Gabriel Olebiyi Ogun, a consultant pathologist with approximately 30 years of experience, conducted the post-mortem examination. He told the court that Binta Gassama died from asphyxiation meaning she was unable to breathe. The cause was smothering and compression of the neck, combined with blunt force injury to the skull.
The professor explained that when a person is prevented from breathing for three to five minutes, death can result. The injuries found bruising, defensive wounds on the forearm, ligature marks on the neck, and skull fracture were entirely consistent with a violent and sustained attack.
The two men were arrested within days of the murder. Police received a tip that a mobile phone belonging to the deceased had been seen in the possession of one of the suspects. The teenage accomplice was first picked up at a police post at London Corner and questioned. He then led officers to Ousainou Jallow, who was later apprehended at his residence in Fajara.
The deceased’s Samsung phone was traced to a black market trader, Samba Njie PW3 confirmed the teenage Lamin Jammeh had sold it to him for D1,500 shortly after the incident at Serrekunda black market, claiming it was his own. That phone was later traced by police and identified by the deceased’s family from the second buyer, Fatou Touray, who purchased the same phone before it was eventually recovered by investigators.
Following Ousainou Jallow arrest, a silver chain was recovered from Jallow at the police station. He then led investigators to a busy area in Bakau, where the victim’s iPhone X was found hidden in thick bushes near a fence. He further directed the team to his own residence in Fajara South, where the victim’s car key was pulled from the roof of an outdoor toilet. The deceased’s daughter later tested the key, which successfully unlocked her late mother’s vehicle.
Ousainou Jallow was charged alongside Lamin Jammeh, who was classified as an Alleged Child Offender (ACO) after an age-determination report confirmed he was a minor at the time of the incident despite having initially told police he was 18 years old. Both were arraigned before the court on 20 March 2023 and both pleaded not guilty.
The prosecution built its case around nine witnesses, forensic evidence, and cautionary statements from both accused. At the heart of the case were two confessional statements Exhibit A2 for Jallow and Exhibit B2 for Jammeh each of which the court found detailed their joint participation in the attack with striking mutual consistency.
In his confessional statement provided by the prosecution, Ousainou Jallow described how, in the early hours of 4 September 2022, he and his co-accused returned from a nightclub at Senegambia, after which Jammeh indicated he had a target and led them to the deceased’s compound. The two men scaled the fence.
After drawing the elderly woman out of her house by throwing stones and charcoal at the gate, they rushed her when she threatened to call her husband. Jallow’s statement described pressing on her neck while Jammeh covered her mouth until she became motionless, after which they dragged her into the bathroom. They then ransacked the house, stealing an iPhone, a Samsung phone, a Huawei tablet, a router, a power bank, headphones, jewellery, a car key, and approximately D600 in cash.
“The statements contain detailed facts and circumstances which could not reasonably have been invented by investigators without knowledge peculiar to the perpetrators.” Justice I. Janneh pointed.
In his defence Ousainou Jallow told the court he was at his tailoring workshop the entire day and had nothing to do with the deceased. He said he went to the police station voluntarily to clear his name but was immediately detained for 21 days. He denied that his statement to police was voluntary and claimed he was tricked into thumb-printing a document under the false promise of bail.
Lamin Jammeh gave a similar account. He said he was arrested while walking home from work, was held without being told the charges, and had no parent or guardian present when police recorded his statement. He said he first learned of the charges against him when he appeared in court.
Ousainou Jallow called one alibi witness DW3 Mola Jammeh, a fellow tailor who testified that he worked alongside Ousainou Jallow on the day of the murder and was with him until they parted ways in the evening. However, under cross-examination, Mola Jammeh admitted that he had no knowledge of Ousainou Jallow’s whereabouts during the hours before work began precisely the time when the attack on Binta Gassama occurred.
The defence had challenged the admissibility of the statements at an earlier stage, alleging torture and, in Lamin Jammeh’s case, that the statement was obtained in violation of section 210 of the Children’s Act because no parent or social worker was present.
Following a voire dire a trial within a trial to assess voluntariness Justice I. Janneh overruled the objection and admitted all statements into evidence. On the Children’s Act point, Justice Janneh noted that at the time of the statement on 6 September 2022, Lamin Jammeh had himself declared his age to be 18; the age determination report placing him as a minor was only produced eight months later in May 2023. She held the issue went to weight, not admissibility.
Justice I. Janneh stated that the statements were remarkably consistent with each other and with the physical evidence at the scene and both described from slightly different vantage points entering the compound, waiting, attacking the woman, dragging her into the bathroom, searching the house, and selling the stolen items at the market. The amounts they each received and the items each held matched in material detail.
Justice I. Janneh also applied the doctrine of recent possession the legal principle that a person found with stolen property who cannot provide a satisfactory explanation for that possession may be presumed to have stolen it. This principle weighed heavily against both accused.
Citing the Supreme Court’s recent guidance in Yankuba Touray v The State (SC Crim. App. No. 001/2022), Justice Janneh held that a plea of alibi must be raised at the earliest opportunity that is, during police investigations to allow the prosecution to verify or disprove it. Because neither accused raised the defence when giving their statements to police, Justice I. Janneh found they had deliberately denied the prosecution of that opportunity. The alibi was rejected as a bare and belated denial, unsupported by independent verification, and incapable of displacing the overwhelming prosecution evidence.
In her sentencing ruling, Justice Janneh acknowledged the mitigation advanced by defence counsel that Jallow is a first-time offender with a wife and a three-year-old child. The prosecution had urged the court to consider a sentence of life imprisonment in view of an existing moratorium on the execution of death sentences. Justice Janneh rejected that submission.
On the murder conviction, Ousainou Jallow was sentenced to death. Justice I. Janneh ruled that Section 188 of the Criminal Code, which was in force at the time of the offence, is mandatory a murder conviction carries no discretion as to the sentence. The existence of a moratorium on executions, she held, does not override the law enacted by the legislature.
On the robbery conviction, Ousainou Jallow was sentenced to life imprisonment. Both sentences are to run concurrently, making the death sentence the operative one.
Justice Janneh identified several aggravating factors the victim was elderly, alone, and in the sanctity of her own home; the assault was prolonged and calculated; the violence used was extreme and ultimately fatal; the stolen goods were swiftly and systematically disposed of; and neither accused displayed any remorse.
“This was not a momentary loss of control. It was a prolonged, deliberate and brutal assault upon a vulnerable and defenceless woman in her own residence.” Justice I. Janneh stated
Justice I. Janneh also noted that the murder was committed in the course of a separate serious felony, which further compounded the gravity of the offence. After the conviction and sentenced, Justice I. Janneh informed Ousainou Jallow of his right to appeal against the decision within ten days from the date of judgment against both conviction and sentence he so wished.
However, Lamin Jammeh’s case was handled separately on account of his age. Justice Janneh remitted him to the Kanifing Children’s Court, which sits at the Bundung Court Complex, where his fate will be determined under juvenile justice provisions. He will remain in the juvenile wing of the State Central Prison pending his appearance before that court
