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| Tabara Samb |
The other eight death row prisoners, some of whom did not exhaust the legal remedies guaranteed by law and one who was declared mentally unfit, were: Dawda Bojang, Malang Sonko, ex-Lt Lamin Jarju, Ex-Sgt. Alieu Bah, ex-Sgt Lamin F. Jammeh, Buba Yarboe, Lamin B.S. Darboe and Giby Ba.
The executions were the first in The Gambia since 1985; Jammeh reinsituted them in 1995 after he seized power illegally in the previous year. When the extra-judicial executions took place, the initial reaction of the regime was to deny that they had occured. An official statement was issued that "all persons on death row....have exhausted all their legal rights of appeal as provided by law" which turned out to be untrue since there were some prisoners who committed their crimes when capital punishment was abolished or had been declared mentally unfit to be executed. Jammeh decided to go ahead with the executions nonetheless. International reaction was loud and swift.
We are now learning from Ousman Sonko's account to the Spanish authorities that Jammeh was intimately involved in the extra-judicial executions that included two Senegalese citizens. We can also say that Jammeh, as a matter of rule, has always been personally involved in all cases involving killing of any kind.
After she was executed, Tabara Samb's body was dismembered, certain body parts taken away for ritual purposes and the rest thrown to Jammeh's crocodiles in his home village of Kanilai. The rest of Jammeh's victims bodies received similar treatment with body parts removed before being thrown into the pond. According to Ousman Sonko, Jammeh was is control of the entire operation throughout the hideous operation.
