There’ll be no “witch doctor” testifying as an expert witness for a Senegalese-raised man who claims he fatally slashed his ex-girlfriend in her new boyfriend’s bed because a “curse” compelled him to, a judge ruled yesterday.
Cheikh Ndao had been set to testify on behalf of admitted killer Bakary Camara, and would have told jurors that, as an imam, he had on several occasions come across other West African people who’d been cursed — including a woman who couldn’t get pregnant until he had her drink Koran-blessed water.
“That makes him a witch doctor, in a sense,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan said after Ndao took the stand to tell his curse-lifting war stories in a pretrial hearing.
“I’ve come to the inescapable conclusion that it’s not even borderline close that he’s an expert,” Merchan said in barring the testimony.
Camara admits he slashed beautiful Italian college student Rita Morelli to death, but has claimed in a confession note that he was powerless to do otherwise.
Last week, defense lawyer Seema Iyer told lead prosecutor Evan Krutoy that she wanted to call an expert in West African curses to the stand, presumably to convince jurors that Camara didn’t kill Morelli intentionally, and is, therefore, innocent of her murder.