By Alhagie Jobe
Abdoulie Fatty, the defense lawyer for three men charged with sedition in The Gambia Tuesday told the Banjul High Court that his clients were severely tortured during detention at the notorious National Intelligent Agency (NIA) headquarters and forced to sign false testimonies.
The trio- Ebrima Keita, Musa Fofana and Alasana Jallow were arrested on May 11, 2016 for saying ‘Jammeh never liked the Mandinkas’, an ethnic group which makes up to 41 per cent of the population of The Gambia.
The alleged comments by the trio came following inflammatory speech by President Jammeh at a political rally in the town of Tallinding on 3rd June in which he threatened to eliminate the Mandinka ethnic group and referred to them as “enemies, foreigners” and threatened to kill them one by one and place them “where even a fly cannot see them”.
The trios are also accused of saying The Gambia was at a ‘boiling point’ following a spate of peaceful protests since April. The protests showed the death in state custody of opposition UDP youth leader Solo Sandeng, a fatality the government recently admitted in court in a reply to a Habeas Corpus filled by the defense on behalf of late Mr Sandeng.
Lawyer Fatty who was addressing the court over the voluntarism of the statements purportedly from his clients told the court to strike it out saying his clients were seriously beaten, threatened at gunpoint and forced to thumbprint confessions that were either dictated to them or written on their behalf and counter signed by a so-called independent witness.
The long time Gambian ruler who is from the minority Jola ethnic group told a recent meeting that if activists dare go out and demonstrate on the streets, he will kill them and nothing will come out of it, causing renewed international outcry ahead of December Presidential elections.
Mr Jammeh has ever been accused of sanctioning human rights abuses in the country and recently accused by Adama Dieng, United Nations Special Advisor on Prevention of Genocide as ‘dehumanising’ the Mandinka ethnic group and uttering very un-presidential comments.
