The State has filed a seventeen-ground Amended Notice of Appeal challenging the acquittal and discharge of Ousainou Bojang and Amie Bojang by the High Court, with the appeal set to proceed pending the determination of a motion filed by the State seeking leave to regularise its filing.
Director of Public Prosecutions A.M. Yusuf signed and filed the Amended Notice of Appeal on the 29th of April 2026, targeting the whole of the judgment delivered by Justice Ebrima Jaiteh on the 30th of March 2026.
The State seeks two principal reliefs from the Court of Appeal: an order setting aside the judgment and an order substituting it with a conviction and a sentence commensurate with the gravity of the offences charged.
The State’s Amended Notice of Appeal challenges the whole of Justice Jaiteh’s judgment on seventeen grounds, ranging from the treatment of confessional evidence, alibi, identification, digital exhibits, and the overall evaluation of the prosecution’s case.
On the confessional statement of the First Respondent (Ousainou Bojang), admitted in evidence as Exhibit P6 following a voir dire, the State contends that the trial judge erred in discounting its weight by imposing a corroboration requirement that has no basis in law.
The State argues that a cautionary statement, which is direct, positive, and unequivocal, is sufficient, standing alone, to sustain a conviction, and that the First Respondent’s (Ousainou Bojang) subsequent retraction of the statement during his defence was an afterthought that could not diminish its evidential weight.
The State further argues the trial judge failed to read the confessional statement together with the unchallenged evidence of prosecution witnesses PW3, PW13, and others, and that this selective approach adversely affected the evaluation of the prosecution’s case.
On the alibi defence, the State argues the trial judge misdirected himself in law by according probative value to an alibi that was raised for the first time at the defence stage, contrary to the established rule that an alibi must be raised at the earliest opportunity, preferably during investigation or in the accused’s extra-judicial statement to the police.
The State contends that the belated alibi deprived the prosecution of any opportunity to investigate its veracity, and that the trial judge’s acceptance of it occasioned a miscarriage of justice in light of what it describes as compelling evidence, including multiple confessions, linking the First Respondent to the offence.
On identification, the State submits that the trial judge erred by requiring positive visual identification in accordance with the principles in R v Turnbull, arguing that the identity of the First Respondent (Ousainou Bojang) was already established through other means, including his own confessions and the testimony of multiple prosecution witnesses who identified him in varying circumstances.
The State says the application of Turnbull imposed an unwarranted and higher evidential burden on the prosecution in circumstances where the law demands no such proof.
On the First Respondent’s (Ousainou Bojang) flight from the jurisdiction the morning after the incident, the State argues the trial judge treated this as an inconsequential matter, accepting the explanation that he fled because a white woman had posted his naked photograph on social media, without critically examining that explanation against all the evidence before the court.
The State argues that flight from a jurisdiction in a suspicious manner immediately after the commission of an offence is a well-established item of circumstantial evidence relevant to consciousness of guilt.
On the weapon, the State contends the trial judge wrongly found material inconsistencies in the prosecution’s evidence regarding the nature of the firearm used, arguing that the testimonies of PW1 and PW2 were consistent and unequivocal that the weapon was a pistol, and that this was corroborated by the unchallenged ballistic evidence of PW12 (Bubacarr Bah), which established that the weapon was a Makarov pistol of 9mm calibre.
Several grounds challenge the admission and handling of digital and documentary exhibits. On Exhibit D38 an audio recording purportedly between PW3 and DW1, downloaded from the Kerr Fatou Online Media platform and converted to audio by DW13, a clerk to defence counsel the State argues the exhibit lacked a proper legal foundation for admissibility, as DW13 had no direct knowledge of the origin, content, or authenticity of the recording, and that a material inconsistency existed between DW13’s testimony that he used his MacBook computer and the accompanying certificate which referenced the computer of Counsel Lamin J. Darboe.
On Exhibit D37, a WhatsApp conversation printout produced from the computer of defence counsel, the State argues this was secondary evidence and that the primary evidence, being the mobile phone of DW12, was never tendered.
On Exhibit D16 and Exhibit D36, both Africell call log records, the State contends that the documents and their accompanying certificates bore identical timestamps with the summonses to produce them, making it a procedural and practical impossibility for the records to have been compiled, certified, and delivered within zero elapsed time, and that Exhibit D16 further displayed an anomalous “High Court” inscription suggesting tampering.
On Ground Fourteen, the State argues the trial judge committed a fundamental error of law by analysing each strand of prosecution evidence in isolation, finding each insufficient standing alone, and then concluding that the prosecution had failed to identify the First Respondent (Ousainou Bojang). The State submits this approach violates the settled principle that a court must evaluate the cumulative effect of all the evidence taken together.
On the acquittal of the Second Respondent (Amie Bojang) on Count 6 being accessory after the fact the State argues that the trial judge’s failure to properly evaluate the evidence against the First Respondent (Ousainou Bojang) led automatically to the discharge of the Second Respondent (Amie Bojang), and that the trial judge overlooked significant evidence showing that the Second Respondent, in unusual circumstances, arranged the transportation that enabled the First Respondent’s (Ousainou Bojang) escape to Senegal on the morning of the 13th of September 2023.
The seventeenth and final ground is that the judgment is unreasonable, unwarranted, and cannot be supported, having regard to the totality of the evidence.
The State has also reserved the right to file further grounds of appeal upon receipt of the complete records of proceedings from the court.
The appeal will proceed before a three-member panel of the Court of Appeal comprising the Presiding Justice N. Salla-Wadda (PCA), Justice B.V.P. Mahoney (JCA), and Justice A. Saho-Ceesay (JCA), pending the determination of the State’s motion seeking leave to regularise its notice of appeal.
