President Jammeh’s Last Words To Disappeared Gambian Journalist

President Yahya Jammeh is accused of personally responsible for the disappearance of journalist Chief Ebrima Manneh. Manneh, a sub-editor of Daily Observer newspaper, was arrested in his office on July 7th 2006. The arrest and subsequent detention were in connection to the reproduction of a BBC article on the African Union Summit in Banjul in June 2006. Manneh’s whereabouts have since not been known. Chief Manneh, who had been moved from one security detention center to another, was at one point hospitalised for high blood pressure in July 2007. The government denied holding Chief Manneh, with the current Inspector General of Police saying he had traveled to the United States. No traces of the disappeared journalist have been found, leaving the veracity of the government’s story in doubt.

However, Kairo News has received disturbing news that Chief Ebrima Manneh had not only been murdered but that President Jammeh had spoken to him shortly before his death.

“We have reached a point in which we must tell the story as it is,” said a State House source familiar with the story. “Chief was murdered in 2007 on the orders of President Jammeh. Manneh was gassed and transported to State House where he later regained consciousness. He was asked whether he knew whether he was. His answer was no. Jammeh told him “you are in State House and that your final day on this earth is today.”

Describing him a traitor who must not live, Yahya Jammeh mocked and insulted Manneh’s mother before ordering his assassins to “kill him for the betterment of the Gambia.” Manneh was then thrown into a waiting van and escorted to Casamance for execution,” our source said.

“Let Sana Manjang tell the full story before it is too late. All I am confident is that Chief Manneh was a victim of extrajudicial execution.”

Ends