Truth Commission recommends prosecutions

The head of Gambia's Truth Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC), Lamin Sise, has recommended that those who bear the greatest responsibility for the crimes committed during the presidency of Yahya Jammeh should be prosecuted. BBC News reports that the commission has been looking into the events that took place during Jammeh's 22-year rule. He stepped down from the presidency in 2017. Sise has just handed over a 17-volume report to President Adama Barrow. This was the result of months of hearings at the TRRC. Sise did not name those who should face justice but in a statement the commission said: ‘To forgive and forget with impunity the violations and abuses ... would not only undermine reconciliation but would also constitute a massive and egregious cover-up of the crimes committed.’ The findings have not yet been made public and the presidency now has six months to respond.

Al Jazeera says the long-awaited 14 000-page report was handed to Barrow just days before a presidential election in which the exiled Jammeh has urged his supporters to vote for an opposition coalition. In all, 240-250 people died at the hands of the state or its agents, the commission said. Nearly 400 witnesses gave chilling evidence about state-sanctioned torture, death squads, rape and ‘witch hunts’, often at the hands of the ‘Junglers’, as Jammeh’s death squads were known. Malick Jatta, an army lieutenant close to Jammeh, said the former President paid more than $1 000 each to members of his security service who killed newspaper editor Deyda Hydara in 2004, according to the Reuters news agency. Sergeant Omar Jallow told the commission that in 2005, Jammeh ordered the killing of 59 unarmed migrants that Jammeh thought had come to overthrow him. Fatou Jallow, the winner of a 2014 beauty pageant, testified that Jammeh raped her when she was 19. Jammeh, who fled to Equatorial Guinea after refusing to accept defeat by Barrow in a 2016 election, has previously denied allegations of wrongdoing. ‘I assure (the victims and their families) that my government will ensure that justice is done,’ Barrow said in a statement, ‘but I urge them to be patient and allow the legal process to take its course.’ Even if Jammeh is found guilty, he may not face punishment. Under Gambian law, a former head of state cannot be prosecuted unless parliament approves proceedings by a two-thirds majority.