The report wishes a trial “in a West African country other than the Gambia”, including “murders, arbitrary detentions, disappearances”. The leader presided over the country from 1994 to 2016, before being forced to leave the power.
Le Monde with AFP
The truth and reconciliation commission that investigated in the Gambia on the crimes committed during the twenty-two years of power of the Dictator Yahya Jammeh recommended, on Friday, December 24, in a report, prosecution before an international tribunal against the leader and several possible accomplices. The Commission wishes a trial “in a West African country other than the Gambia, under the aegis of the Economic Community of West African States (CEDAO) and / or the African Union”, in particular ” Murders, arbitrary detentions, disappearances “.
This court could be similar to the one who tried in Senegal the former Head of State Hissène Habré, who led Chad from 1982 to 1990. Mr. Habré, who died in August of COVID-19, had been sentenced At the prison for life in 2016 by an African jurisdiction for crimes against humanity, rape, executions, slavery and abduction.
“Senegal has [always] in place the necessary infrastructure that had judged Hissène Habré. Ghana is another option”, as well as Sierra Leone, says the report of the Truth, Reconciliation and Repair Commission (TRCC) ), presented Friday in Banjul by the Minister of Justice Dawdu Jallow. “For a period of twenty-two years, from July 22, 1994, Yahya Jammeh and his colleagues [CPRA members, the presidential party] and other co-orders have perpetrated serious crimes in the Gambia,” says the report. .
between 240 and 250 people are dead
The document in seventeen volumes had been submitted on 25 November to President Adama Barrow by the Commission who had not published its content. The TRCC reported on the extent of crimes perpetrated under Yahya Jammeh in this small poor and landlocked country in West Africa: murderers, acts of torture, enforced disappearances, rapes and castrations, arbitrary arrests, hunts to witches, until the forced administration of a false treatment against AIDS. Between 240 and 250 people died in the hands of the state and his agents, according to her.
The Commission, created in 2017, heard from January 2019 to May 2021 393 witnesses, victims and former “Junglers” (“Brush”), the members of the squadrons of the death of the regime, come to tell in hearings sometimes upsetting the atrocities of the regime. Many statements have directly challenged Mr. Jammeh.
The Minister of Justice Jallow stated that the Gambian government was “committed to applying the report’s recommendations”. He reaffirmed the announcement already made by the Government to publish “a White Paper” on these recommendations at the latest on May 25, 2022.
“Many pressures in gambia and abroad”
“After the powerful public testimonials in front of the TRRC who have deeply touched the Gambians, there will be a lot of pressure in the Gambia and abroad, for justice to be done without delay for the victims who have already waited five years And sometimes longer, “said Reed Brody, American lawyer engaged at the victims’ side.
The TRRC report is published two weeks after President Adama Barrow’s re-election, the election in 2016 ended more than twenty years of dictatorship. Speaking on prosecutions against crime authors in the Jammeh years, Mr. Barrow was on December 7, at the announcement of his re-election, declared: “I take part in the decision, but it is not entirely my Decision. “The decision will be made in consultation with his Government and after consulting experts, he said. Mr. Barrow has six months to pronounce.
The TRRC qualified in a progress report published in April 2020 the human rights violations under Yahya Jammeh of “massive, appalling and diverse”. After the presidential election of the end of 2016 won by Mr. Barrow and six weeks of a twisting crisis provoked by the refusal of Mr. Jammeh to give the power, the latter had finally had to leave the country for Equatorial Guinea, under the pressure of A West African military intervention and following a ultimate Guinero-Mauritanian mediation.