Justice Jaiteh convicts husband on five counts after night attack left wife wheelchair-bound. Yugo Sowe, who entered his wife’s bedroom in the middle of the night and hacked her with a cutlass, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by the High Court.
Justice Jaiteh convicted Yugo Sowe, also known as Gorgi Sowe, on five criminal counts. The victim, Amie Sowe, now lives in a wheelchair; she nearly died from the attack.
Yugo Sowe and Amie had been married for twenty-three years and had seven children together. But the marriage had become bitter over land and property. Yugo had sold land and a cow that belonged to Amie without her permission.
He had also threatened to sell the house she was living in with their children and repeatedly told her he would kill her if she did not agree to give his second wife a share of the property.
On the night of November 16, 2023, Amie went to sleep at around 8:00 p.m. At about 2:00 a.m., Yugo Sowe, who had been staying at his second wife’s house, invaded Amie’s room. The room was lit. He was carrying a cutlass and wearing a sea-green haftan with a scarf around his neck.
He attacked her while she was lying down. He hacked her legs repeatedly, cut her arms, and injured her fingers. When he swung the cutlass at her neck, she raised her hand to protect herself, and the blade struck her hand instead. She screamed his name and asked him why he was trying to kill her. He ran away.
One of her sons, thirteen-year-old Abdoulie, woke up during the attack and watched his father strike his mother with the cutlass. Yugo Sowe stood at the doorway and used the weapon to stop the children from coming to help their mother. After he fled, the children used Amie’s phone to call neighbours, who called the police.
Police found Amie lying on a blood-soaked mattress, bleeding heavily and barely clothed. She immediately told officers that Yugo Sowe had attacked her. She repeated the same thing when police brought Yugo Sowe before her at the scene.
A search of his second wife’s house later that morning turned up the cutlass hidden under a bed, along with bloodstained clothing. His second wife told police both belonged to Yugo and that he had left the house during the night, saying he was going to the toilet, and had been gone for more than an hour.
Doctors at Ndemban Clinic found that the patient had broken both her lower leg bones, suffered deep cuts on her arms, damaged tendons in her hands, injured a nerve in her arm, and torn her Achilles tendon. The medical report described the injuries as dangerous, meaning she could have died. She spent two months in the hospital and had two operations. She has not recovered the ability to walk.
In his defence, Yugo Sowe denied everything. He said he was sick that night and could not have carried out the attack. He said he never left his second wife’s house until someone knocked on his door and told him Amie had been attacked by armed robbers. He claimed the blood on his clothing came from sitting on the mattress in the police vehicle after his arrest.
A neighbour he called as a witness, known as Wandifa, said he was the one who went to inform Yugo about the attack. But the same witness also told the court that when he arrived at Amie’s house and asked her what happened, she told him directly that Yugo Sowe came into the house and chopped her body with a cutlass without remorse.
Justice Jaiteh rejected everything the Yogo Sowe put forward as a defence. On the question of who attacked Amie, Justice Jaiteh found no real doubt. He said Amie had lived with Yugo for twenty-three years. Her son Abdoulie knew him as his father. Both of them identified him clearly during and immediately after the attack.
A police sergeant who responded to the scene testified that Amie pointed Yugo out the moment he was brought before her. Even Yugo’s own witness confirmed that Amie named Yugo as her attacker right after the incident.
Justice Jaiteh also found that Yugo’s illness defence did not hold. Abdoulie had testified that his father, despite a weakness on one side of his body, held the cutlass in his right hand and struck his mother repeatedly.
“Being unwell is not the same as being unable to commit the crime,” Justice Jaiteh anchored.
On the alibi, Justice Jaiteh noted that Yugo’s second wife herself could not account for his whereabouts throughout the night. She had told police he was gone for more than an hour and that she had fallen asleep. That gap in the night was enough.
On the suggestion that armed robbers attacked Amie, Justice Jaiteh said plainly, “No evidence pointed to any unknown attacker. A reasonable doubt must come from evidence, not from guesswork.”
Justice Jaiteh found Yugo guilty on all five counts: Attempt to Murder, Grievous Harm, Acts Intended to Cause Grievous Harm, Wounding, and Domestic Violence.
Before delivering the sentence, defence counsel submitted in mitigation that Yugo was a first-time offender, a family man, and a breadwinner and pleaded for mercy. The prosecution confirmed he had no previous convictions.
Justice Jaiteh took note but said the mitigation had to be weighed against the seriousness of what he had done.
Justice Jaiteh listed eight things that made the case worse: the victim was his own wife, not a stranger; the attack was planned, not sudden; he attacked a sleeping woman in her own home; he brought a weapon; the attack went on and on; the injuries were life-altering; the children watched; and he showed no remorse.
Finally, Justice Jaiteh sentenced Yugo Sowe to seven years for Attempt to Murder, seven years for Grievous Harm, life imprisonment for Acts Intended to Cause Grievous Harm, three years for Wounding, and two years for Domestic Violence. All sentences run together, meaning he will serve life imprisonment.
Justice Jaiteh closed by addressing the public. He said the warning signs in this case, repeated threats, control over property, isolation, and physical assaults, are signs of danger, not love.
He called on families, neighbours, and community leaders to take such threats seriously and not dismiss them as empty anger. He said the court would continue to protect the right of every woman to live free from violence.
