A Gambian man on trial in Germany accused of belonging to a death squad that murdered opponents of former dictator Yahya Jammeh, including an AFP journalist, on Thursday denied the charges.
“I did not take part in these acts,” said the defendant’s lawyer Bai Lowe in front of the court in Celle and read a statement from the defendant.
Lowe, 47, who is charged with crimes against humanity, murder and attempted murder, including the 2004 killing of AFP correspondent Deyda Hydara, listened intently to the English translation of the statement, which was read out in German.
In it, Lowe said he had in the past merely repeated what other people had told him about the facts of the case.
Explaining previous statements in media interviews that appeared to incriminate him, Lowe told the court he intended to demonstrate to his compatriots in The Gambia how cruel Jammeh’s regime was.
Lowe, who was on trial in April, is accused of involvement in two murders and one attempted murder while working as a driver for the homicide squad known as the Junglers between December 2003 and December 2006.
Human Rights Watch called the trial “the first trial to prosecute human rights abuses committed in The Gambia during the Jammeh era on the basis of universal jurisdiction.”
Universal jurisdiction allows a foreign state to prosecute crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide, regardless of where they were committed.
– ‘Betrays common sense’ –
Hydara was the editor and co-founder of the independent daily The Point and a correspondent for AFP for over 30 years.
The father of four also worked as Gambia correspondent for the action group Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
He was gunned down in his car on the outskirts of Banjul on December 16, 2004.
Lowe is charged with helping stop Hydara’s car before driving one of the killers in his own vehicle.
In a statement to AFP, Hydara’s son Baba said he rejected Lowe’s account to the judges.
“As a victim and plaintiff in this case, I feel disappointed, offended and betrayed by (this) statement that betrays common sense,” he said.
Hydara’s attorney, Patrick Kroker, added that “the testimony of the defendant appears to be fabricated and incomplete. In addition, it has already been contradicted on numerous occasions by the evidence gathered to date”.
“It is a step backwards in seeking the truth for the victims of Yahya Jammeh,” Kroker told AFP.
“We assume that the court will not believe this statement.”
Attorney Ida Jagne, who was in Hydara’s car when he was killed, also dismissed Lowe’s testimony.
“The testimony is extremely implausible … because the accounts he gave in interviews were very detailed: who took part, what happened,” Jagne’s own attorney, Peer Stolle, told reporters outside the courtroom.
Lowe arrived in Europe via Senegal in December 2012 and said he was seeking asylum as a political refugee fearing for his life under Jammeh.
He was arrested in Germany in March 2021 on the charges.
Jammeh ruled The Gambia with an iron fist for 22 years but fled the country in January 2017 after losing a presidential election to relatively unknown Adama Barrow.
He refused to accept the results, but was driven out by a popular uprising and fled to Equatorial Guinea.
Five former members of the secret service were sentenced to death by a Gambian court in July this year for the murder of a political activist during Jammeh’s rule.
