Former army chief Lang Tombong Tamba has told the TRRC the junglers hit at tables after they went against an order from their boss to torture him.
Tamba on Wednesday recalled how a jungler pointed a gun at his head in the bushes outside Banjul and later taken to the NIA.
“We met Solo Bojang, he exchanged words with them which I didn’t hear,” Tamba told the TRRC as he said of his arrival at the NIA.
He continued: “But what happened was Solo instructed that they should lead us to the conference room upstairs. And of course, I was the first to be led and of course what Solo told them was for us to be tortured. But like I said earlier, those junglers they knew that our allegation of a planned coup was false. So even if they’re given instructions to torture us, they wouldn’t do.
“The reason they took us upstairs that night was to be tortured. When we reached the conference hall, I was the first to be taken before Bo Badjie. What they did was… They had of course some sticks, batons I’m not sure. They started hitting the tables, they said they will hit the tables so that if Solo Bojang hears that, he will feel that we have been tortured. That was what they did. And before we left, those junglers advised us that when we’re coming downstairs, we should be limping as if we suffered that torture and of course they don’t want Solo to notice that we were walking normal meaning that nothing was done to us.
“So certainly we complied and when we were getting down the stairs, walking towards our vehicle, we were limping. And certainly when they took us back to Mile Two, that was the same impression we showed there as if we were tortured. That was why on Cell No. 1 were I stayed, all that I pretended that we were been tortured.
“So my colleagues there, I heard Serign Faal before this commission, that I have been tortured seriously. It was as a result of this. I also heard the prison officers saying that I was tortured to the extent that I couldn’t walk. I want to state on record here that they might have made a mistake.”
