Madi Ceesay, National Assembly Member for Serekunda West, has said that the APRC attempted to kill him while covering the return of lawyer Ousainou Darboe from Europe in 1998.

Mr Ceesay, who was working then as a journalist, made the statement during his testimony before the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission on Wednesday July 17.

He said: “I would call that an attempt to kill me, because he (Darboe) went on a European tour and spent quite a longtime there and when he was returning home, it was announced on local newspapers and radio stations. I was assigned to cover the arrival and subsequent rally and knowing the type of system we have (at the time) I printed a label press in front of my vehicle not as a militant but as a press.

“As I was driving to the airport and around Tabokoto the then First Lady Tuti Faal’s convoy was coming from the opposite direction. So when I came up to Tabokoto I heard a siren. I was with my friend Almamy Jagana and we (decided) to park the vehicle off the road. When the last vehicle passed, I told him to follow them and then this gentleman pull out a pistol and fired at us,” he said.

Mr Ceesay said the former government was seeing journalists as “its enemy but that journalists never see the former government as enemy”.

He said former president Yahya Jammeh did everything to silence the media particularly the private media in the country.

Madi Ceesay was harassed and imprisoned for his journalistic work during the Jammeh administration.

Mr Ceesay is now a politician and senior official of the opposition United Democratic Party (UDP). He was elected as a National Assembly member for Serekunda West in 2017

The hearings continues.

Reporting by Adama Makasuba