The walk-out by Ousainou Darboe's defense team from the court room today was a direct result of Jammeh, according to sources close to the dictator. We are being told that the reason the armed soldiers are insistently interrupting by invading the private space of the defense team during consultations with the defendants in contravention of laywer-client confidentiality is because they are directly ordered to do so by Jammeh.
The armed soldiers have been instructed to interrupt the consultations and occupy the space so that information about the prison conditions and the treatment of the defendants is not leaked through the defense team to the outside world.
Since the demonstrations started in April, Jammeh and his regime have suffered from bad international press that led to a series of condemnations, culminating in the European Parliament's resolution recommending sanctions by individual member states of the EU, including travel ban on senior officials of his embattled regime.
Jammeh seem to have had enough for now and thus is trying to prevent more bad news coming out of the defendants which can only add to his current woes which has resulted in the bizarre and usual behavior of the armed soldiers leading to the current crisis. Instead of the defendants being on trial, it is Jammeh and his corrupt and unjust judiciary that is on trial in full view of the international community.
