By Lamin Njie
The family of a former soldier who was killed while trying to remove former President Yahya Jammeh from power on Tuesday paid tribute to his bravery.
Alagie Jaja Nyass was killed alongside three fellow armed exiles during an earning morning attack on State House four years ago.
“Couple of days before the incident happened, Alagie got sick and came to me and told me, ‘ I’m not feeling well.’ I said, ‘okay, you came to a malaria zone, I’m going to do a malaria test on you.’ I did a malaria test and found out he had malaria. I put him on treatment and I said, ‘ok you have to take your treatment and be at home’. But then you see I can bet you here none of his comrades knew that he had malaria and that he was on treatment. He put that aside and went all out to fight with them,” Abdou Nyass, a brother to Alagie Nyass, told journalists at a press conference held at Victims Centre on Tuesday.
Alagie Nyass was a sergeant in the Gambian army but retired in 1995 after his return from a military course in Turkey, Abdou Nyass added.
He said: “Alagie as a junior officer won an award that earned him a scholarship to go and study in Turkey. He did commando training in Turkey upon his return he worked couple of months. That was around 1994. But he thought this was not the type of regime he left had left back home. He thought he cannot continue and then he decided to leave. He left the force around 1995.”
According to Abdou, Alagie “got married couple of months before he came to The Gambia.”
“He got married in November. He came for holidays in December and the incident happened in December,” he said.
