Gambia ‘death squad’ killings: A Gambian man in Germany was charged by German prosecutors with crimes against humanity for his role in the killing of government critics in The Gambia more than 10 years ago.
Prosecutors said the man, Bai L. , whose surname they chose to hide due to privacy reasons, was a driver for a patrol team within the Gambian military also known as ‘Junglers’ between December 2003 and December 2006.
The unit was allegedly deployed by ex Gambia’s president, Yahya Jammeh, to carry out illegal killings to suppress the opposition and intimidate the public.
Bail. L was suspected to have been involved in two killings and one attempted murder. Among them, he drove other members of the death squad to kill a lawyer in the Gambian capital Banjul in the late 2003.
He managed to survive with serious injures.
READ MORE: Gambian hiding in Germany arrested for crimes against humanity
In 2006, members of the unit shot dead an alleged opponent of the Gambian president near Banjul airport. Bai L. , identified by German media as Bai Lowe, transported the other accomplices to the scene.
Among those targeted was a journalist, Deyda Hydara, who was a critic of the government, murdered in 2004, and a lawyer who survived an ambush a year earlier.
Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission was set up in October 2018 to investigate alleged abuses under his 22-year rule.
In July 2019, a former soldier implicated Jammeh in Hydara’s death, saying he called for him to be assassinated.
Human rights group welcomed the indictment – this is the third prosecution in connection with crimes conducted by the ex president recently – abc news. The case is being brought on the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows a foreign country to prosecute crimes against humanity, including war crimes and genocide, regardless of where they were committed.
Reed Brody of the International Commission of Jurists said that the long arm of the law is catching up to Yahya Jammeh and his accomplices around the world. They continue to be capture all over the world and some have been arrest in Germany, Switzerland and the United States.