THE BIG FISH WALKING FREE: Inside ‘raped and brutalised’ Penny Appeal orphans case
he Penny Appeal case is now at the high court in Banjul, brought back from the dead after two years. But out of initial nine persons who were facing trial, only six names are left on the revised charge sheet, and four of them are minors. In this follow up story, Malagen investigates how the prosecutors and police leave out the 'big fish' in what has been a long-drown-out stop-start courtroom saga in pursuit of justice for hundreds of orphans who were abused and exploited in orphanages that had been operating for six years without a legal permit.
When the case came up two years later, on June 7, the revised charge sheet omitted the names of key people caught up in the Penny Appeal scandal.
The new judge assigned to the case, Justice Ebrima Jaiteh, was dismayed and frustrated at the lack of progress and warned the police that he was not going to tolerate their ‘games’. The new state prosecutor, Patrick Gomez, displayed no less frustration.
In this election investigation series, Malagen returns to the Penny Appeal case, a story of years of abuse and exploitation of hundreds of orphans under the care of orphanages that do not have a legal permit to operate one.
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