Gambia Says it Will Prosecute Former President for Murder

BANJUL, Gam­bia — Many of the Gam­bian cit­i­zens who tes­ti­fied in recent years that their for­mer pres­i­dent was respon­si­ble for a wide range of atroc­i­ties nev­er thought they would one day see him tried in a courtroom.

But that prospect became more real on Wednes­day, after the cur­rent gov­ern­ment said it plans to pros­e­cute Yahya Jam­meh, who for 22 years ruled over and often ter­ror­ized the cit­i­zens of his small nation on the coast of West Africa.

The Truth, Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and Repa­ra­tions Com­mis­sion, cre­at­ed to uncov­er human rights vio­la­tions, from 2018 to 2021 streamed the tes­ti­monies of vic­tims and the con­fes­sions of alleged per­pe­tra­tors live into the nation’s liv­ing rooms.

The wit­ness­es includ­ed mem­bers of the for­mer president’s hit squad, known as the jun­glers. But many more of the wit­ness­es were cit­i­zens who recount­ed being vic­tim­ized, such as Toufah Jal­low, who accused the for­mer pres­i­dent of rap­ing her when she was 18, just after she had won the nation’s top tal­ent show.

“It’s a huge relief off my shoul­ders,” Ms. Jal­low said in an inter­view of the government’s deci­sion on Wednes­day. “We lost hope at some point.”

But of final­ly reach­ing this point, she said: “It’s very empow­er­ing for a lot of victims.”

In a tele­vised address, Daw­da Jal­low, the min­is­ter of jus­tice, pre­sent­ed the government’s response to the truth com­mis­sion, accept­ing its rec­om­men­da­tions, which includ­ed the pros­e­cu­tion of the for­mer president.

“Pres­i­dent Jam­meh will face jus­tice for the atroc­i­ties that he com­mit­ted in this coun­try,” Mr. Jal­low said.

But while some vic­tims and civ­il soci­ety lead­ers wel­comed it as a huge step, oth­ers expressed doubts that the gov­ern­ment would fol­low its words with con­crete action.

“I think Adama Bar­row and his gov­ern­ment real­ize they have no choice but to accept these rec­om­men­da­tions,” said Nana-Jo Ndow, founder of the African Net­work against Extra­ju­di­cial Killings and Enforced Dis­ap­pear­ances. But, she added, “whether they pros­e­cute or not is anoth­er question.”

The truth com­mis­sion doc­u­ment­ed 122 cas­es of tor­ture, more than 230 peo­ple killed and many raped by Mr. Jammeh’s oper­a­tives, the major­i­ty of them on the for­mer president’s orders. Mr. Jam­meh jailed his crit­ics, brand­ed cit­i­zens as witch­es and forced peo­ple with AIDS to swap their med­ica­tions for bogus herbal treat­ments that he had invent­ed, accord­ing to human rights advocates.

After los­ing an elec­tion and try­ing to cling to pow­er, Mr. Jam­meh final­ly went into exile in 2017. A new coali­tion gov­ern­ment and its new pres­i­dent, a for­mer real estate agent named Adama Bar­row, were greet­ed as heroes.

But pol­i­tics soon took prece­dence over jus­tice. Last year, with anoth­er elec­tion approach­ing, Pres­i­dent Bar­row turned for sup­port to his pre­de­ces­sor, Mr. Jam­meh. Mr. Jam­meh is liv­ing in exile in Equa­to­r­i­al Guinea, but still, despite a split in his par­ty, enjoys con­sid­er­able sup­port in Gam­bia, par­tic­u­lar­ly in his home region of Foni, where in last year’s elec­tion his fac­tion won all five par­lia­men­tary seats.

Some vic­tims said Mr. Bar­row could not be seri­ous about pros­e­cut­ing Mr. Jam­meh while at the same time seek­ing his polit­i­cal backing.

Mr. Bar­row suc­ceed­ed in win­ning the sup­port of part of Mr. Jammeh’s for­mer par­ty, and it was enough to return Mr. Bar­row to pow­er. But Mr. Jam­meh him­self refused to endorse Mr. Bar­row — at one point even call­ing him a “don­key.” By spurn­ing Mr. Bar­row, Mr. Jam­meh made it polit­i­cal­ly fea­si­ble for the cur­rent pres­i­dent to pur­sue the pros­e­cu­tion of his pre­de­ces­sor, ana­lysts said.

“What actu­al­ly saved us right now,” said Ms. Ndow, “is Yahya Jammeh’s mad­ness. His mad­ness actu­al­ly came in handy this time, because he shot him­self in the foot.”

Ms. Ndow’s father was forcibly dis­ap­peared under Mr. Jammeh’s direct orders and is pre­sumed to have been killed. Togeth­er with many oth­er vic­tims, she turned a per­son­al tragedy into a dogged cam­paign to bring per­pe­tra­tors to account.

But, she said, every step has been a fight, with the gov­ern­ment fail­ing to inves­ti­gate what appeared to be clear cas­es of abuse, and allow­ing con­fessed mur­der­ers to con­tin­ue their employ­ment in the armed forces and releas­ing them from cus­tody into close-knit Gam­bian soci­ety. Some­times, they bumped into rel­a­tives of their victims.

And even after the Bar­row-Jam­meh alliance failed to mate­ri­al­ize, Mr. Bar­row appoint­ed two of his predecessor’s high­est-rank­ing offi­cials as speak­er and deputy speak­er of Gambia’s House of Assembly.

Madi Jobarteh, a Gam­bian human rights activist who was recent­ly the sub­ject of a per­son­al attack by Pres­i­dent Bar­row, said that the government’s response on Wednes­day, coin­ci­den­tal­ly Mr. Jammeh’s 57th birth­day, was encour­ag­ing overall.

“It appears the gov­ern­ment has now mus­tered courage,” and begun address­ing jus­tice issues, he said, after a “dis­ap­point­ing start over the years.”

And Fatou Baldeh, who wrote a report doc­u­ment­ing sex­u­al vio­lence dur­ing the Jam­meh era, said that the offi­cial state­ment “lays the foun­da­tion for jus­tice and reparations.”

But the gov­ern­ment has not detailed how it will under­take any pros­e­cu­tions, or on what timeline.

Sev­er­al senior fig­ures in Mr. Jammeh’s gov­ern­ment applied for amnesty and were denied it. One rec­om­men­da­tion of the truth com­mis­sion was not accept­ed: to bar from office the chief of the Nation­al Intel­li­gence Agency who, after Mr. Bar­row became pres­i­dent, had ren­o­vat­ed the cells where tor­ture vic­tims were held, destroy­ing vital evi­dence like graf­fi­ti and blood­stains. He remains in his position.

For Ms. Ndow, it was clear that though the strug­gle had been long, it would have to continue.

“It took five years of bark­ing, but clear­ly you’re lis­ten­ing,” she said, refer­ring to the gov­ern­ment. “And we’re not going anywhere.”

“Hope­ful­ly oth­er Gam­bians don’t have to go through what I’ve gone through,” she added.