Abubacarr Tambadou, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice of Gambia, announced on Monday August 5 that he is ordering the release of the three “Junglers” who recently confessed at the TRRC to taking part in a series of gruesome killings on the orders of Yahya Jammeh. The three are Malick Jatta, Omar Jallow and Amadou Badjie.
The Junglers were a notorious unofficial paramilitary unit drawn from the State Guard, that took its orders directly from Jammeh.
At his press conference, Minister Tambedou did not set out any restrictions which would prevent the freed Junglers from now leaving the country.
You may contact the following persons for reactions, or use the quotes below:
YA MAMIE CEESAY +220 392 1747 (WhatsApp)
“I feel so disrespected as a mother that my government is setting free the men who just confessed in the savage killing of my son,” saidYa Mamie Cessay, mother of Alhaji Ceesay, one of two Gambian-American businessmen killed in 2013. According to two of the Junglers, Alhaji Ceesay and Ebou Jobe were suffocated and decapitated under orders from Jammeh that “they be chopped into pieces.” ”What is the point of truth if the perpetrators of these crimes are set loose ?”
BABA HYDARA +220 222 9559 (WhatsApp)
“It’s wrong to hear all these confessions, then release the killers out in our streets, out in our communities, out in our societies,” said Baba Hydara, the son of Deyda Hydara, a prominent newspaper editor who was murdered in a drive-by killing in December 2004. In July 2019, ex-Jungler Malick Jatta admitted that he had been one of the men who shot Deyda Hydara. “Imagine if it were your neighbor, you would sleep with one eye open. We can’t be safe. We say no to releasing all these confessed killers.”
REED BRODY +1 917 388 6745 (WhatsApp)
“If these hitmen flee The Gambia now, not only will they escape justice, but we will lose the key witnesses in any future trial against Yahya Jammeh for ordering these gruesome crimes,” said Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch, who is coordinating the push for the criminal prosecution of Mr. Jammeh, as he did for the ex-Chadian dictator Hissène Habré, who was convicted in 2016 of crimes against humanity.
—
Reed Brody
Human Rights Watch
Ends