This archive report was first published on 6 August 2019.
On August 6, 2019, the release of three self-confessed assassins from the Gambian Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) sparked outrage among relatives of people murdered under the regime of former ruler Yahya Jammeh.
The three soldiers, Malick Jatta, Omar Jallow, and Amadou Badjie, were members of a paramilitary unit known as the “Junglers” and were freed from army custody two weeks after appearing before the TRRC.
They had been under detention since their arrest by the military police in 2017, when President Adama Barrow took office after winning elections in December 2016.
The TRRC is investigating human rights violations alleged to have been committed during Jammeh's 22-year rule, including reports of extrajudicial killings, torture, and arbitrary detention.
During the hearings, the three assassins accused Jammeh of ordering numerous murders, including the notorious 2013 killings of two US-Gambians and a veteran local journalist, Deyda Hydara.
Justice Minister Abubacarr Tambadou defended the decision to release the three, saying it would encourage other human rights violators to testify.
“The TRRC is not a court of law and one of its primary objectives is to establish the truth,” Reuters news agency quoted him as saying.
“What we must not do is to scare people away from telling the truth because that will not be in anyone's interest,” he added.
However, Mr. Hydara’s son, Baba, expressed outrage over the release, saying it has been hard for the family to hear about the hit squad.
He told the AFP news agency that the testimony from Mr. Jatta particularly affected him: “How it was planned, how he explained it, it's like they did their homework. They studied. They really did research on how and where to hit him... it was very premeditated.”
“We are appealing to the government to make sure that these confessed killers are not in our streets, are not in our communities,” Reuters quotes him as saying.
