Gambia arrests ex-general, suspected member of death squad

BANJUL (AFP): The Gambian military said Saturday it had arrested a former general who was an alleged member of a death squad under former dictator Yahya Jammeh.

Former brigadier general Bora Colley is alleged to have belonged to a paramilitary unit nicknamed the “Junglers” which has long been accused of carrying out extrajudicial killings and torture by the United Nations and rights groups.

“Ex-General Colley was arrested on Friday 9 August 2024 around midnight when he voluntarily surrendered himself to the GAF Military Police in Yundum Barracks,” near the capital Banjul, the Gambia Armed Forces said in a statement.

Intelligence services had conducted surveillance operations around his residence in Banjul on the day of his arrest, the statement said.

Colley “is currently detained and cooperating with the Military Police in their investigations.”

The Gambian government in 2022 endorsed the recommendations of a commission that looked into atrocities perpetrated under Jammeh, with authorities agreeing to prosecute 70 people, including the former president, who came to power following a coup in 1994.

Jammeh, whose 22-year rule of the tiny West African country was marked by numerous human rights violations, lost the presidential election in December 2016 to opposition leader Adama Barrow.

He fled the country in January 2017 for Equatorial Guinea, where he finally conceded and handed over power.