A Gambian man has been charged in Germany for being part of an army assassination group for former President Yahya Jammeh when he was in power, Germany’s federal public prosecutors said.
Identified as Bai L, the suspect is accused of participating in crimes against humanity, including the 2004 killing of Deyda Hydara, one of The Gambia’s most-respected journalists critical of the government.
Bai L, identified by German media as Bai Lowe, is also accused of involvement in the attempted murder of a lawyer in 2003. In a third incident in 2006, the accused allegedly drove members of the unit to a site near Banjul airport where they shot dead a suspected opponent of the president, the prosecutors said.
The federal prosecutor said Bai L allegedly worked as a driver for the elite unit known as “the Junglers” between December 2003 and December 2006.
“This unit was used by the then president of Gambia to carry out illegal killing orders, among other things” with the aim of “intimidating the Gambian population and suppressing the opposition”, prosecutors in the city of Karlsruhe said on Thursday.
On at least three occasions, he had driven officers to locations where they had fired on Jammeh’s opponents, the prosecutor said.
He was arrested in Hanover in March 2021 and has since been in pre-trial detention.
Jammeh who ruled for 22 years fled into exile in 2017 after losing a presidential election to Adama Barrow.
