A former Gambian minister who was detained last weekend for alleged witness tampering was Monday given a million Dalasi court bail.
Yankuba Touray, a former AFPRC junta member and minister who held various portfolios during Ex-President Yahya Jammeh’s 22-year presidency, was arrested on Saturday and detained at Kairaba Police Station following a complaint by the Ministry of Justice over concerns expressed by the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) that he had attempted to tamper or interfere with one of its witness, ex-army Sergeant, Alagie Kanyi.
The commission also expressed fear that Touray had attempted to pervert the cause of justice by concealing evidence that could potentially incriminate him and junta colleagues in alleged atrocities and extra-judicial executions meted out to citizens while in power.
Prosecutors alleged that on or about the 5th January 2019, at Kanifing and diverse places, the former minister with intent to obstruct or interfere with the work of the TRRC, had called Alagie Kanyi, through his mobile phone and told him that he should not mind the commission, as they cannot do anything.
Prosecutors said Touray phone call suggests or amounts to interfering with the work of the commission in the discharge of its functions.
The former minister rejected the allegations and was granted bail by Principal Magistrate Isatou Janneh-Njie of the Kanifing Court.
The case continues.
A MODEST RESPONSE TO THOSE WHO WANT TO ABSOLVE “KILLERS” AND “TORTURERS” WITH A NARRATIVE OF “I WAS ORDERED TO KILL OR TORTURE”, “THEY MADE ME DO IT”, OR “THEY WERE ORDERED TO “KILL” OR “TORTURE”.
In a Court of Law, attempts to deflect and deny one’s Culpability and Responsibility of killing another person with a “they made me do it”, or I was ordered to kill or be killed, therefore, I am not Culpable or responsible for the killing” is not and has never been an acceptable or reasonable Defense. It might be a mitigating factor, but not a Defense. Those who gave direct orders to others to kill are as Culpable and responsible as the killers. Accepting these Truths and Facts about the reality of what happened in the Gambia during the Second Republic would go a long way to bring about Healing and potentially Reconciliation. Denial of it may serve our individual Self-serving Constitution and Mindset, but is not Sustainable in the long run. After all, one of the first Cardinal Rules of Military Command and Discipline is the “Right to Refuse an Order that is Contrary to the Values and Principles Governing the Conduct of an Officer and a Gentleman of a Military Service”. One may argue that “hindsight is 20/20” and that it is easy for others to make judgements one way or another. However, I am of the opinion that, those who accept the job of Protecting the National Welfare and Common Good of a Nation by joining the military of a Nation, ought to have a good sense of what is expected of them. No Coup is legitimate and no soldier should be rewarded for making a Coup or joining a Coup against a legitimately elected and constituted government. Conversedly, when armed men and women decide to stage a Counter Coup, there is an understanding that, unlike a Coup in which a Civilian, unarmed government that is forcefully overthrown by armed members of the military, Counter Coups are by their definition and nature an “Affair” between two armed members of the same military. In such a case or circumstance, it is a matter of “kill or be killed. I am not be flippant or insensitive about loss of lives in such an event. However, I am not willing to equate it with a Military Coup against a Duely Elected Civilian Government. Gambia and African Nations need to demand that their Militaries institute a Clear and Defined Lessons of Civics, Citizenship and Loyalty to the Common Good and Welfare of the Gambia and the Public Institutions. Above all, the military should not be Politicised nor ethonocentrically Constituted or Promoted. Doing so would only create Discontentment and Instability within the Ranks and File Officers of the Military and in turn Destabilize the Nation. Let the Past inform the Present and Future. Again, if my opinion offends anyone, that is not my intention, just expressing what I believe to be the Truth and Facts of Life.
Sidi, no one is exonerating Alagie Kanyi. There is a deep soul searching in that guy’s community. He had the choice to say no even if that would amount to his own death.
But what Bourne and I are saying, is that the order to kill didn’t emanate from Kanyi. Otherwise, he would have being sentenced to death by Jammeh for killing Koro Ceesay. So the responsibility for killing the 11. November 1994 soldiers and countless others including Koro lies at the door step of Jammeh, Sabally, Singhateh, Touray and who ever took part in the decision to kill people extrajudicially.
The Nuremberg trial is an example. The regular killers at the concentration camps were not prosecuted in that trial. These executors of orders were prosecuted in other courts.
But Tried in the Nuremberg court were the top echelons of the nazi regime who occupied the “control centers” of governmental power.
The Gambia police are the boss to look into every crime committed in the country at anytime, anyhow and anywhere. A disciplined army knows how serious a crime is committed within its barracks when the police personnel have to enter a military barracks. When police personnel have to go inside a barracks, it’s just a matter of showing their IDs,(if they are plain-clothed) and walking their way into the barracks. If they are in state police uniform and mobile with
a state vehicle with an emblem, the sentry should quickly open the gates for them(the police). It doesn’t have to take any negotiations or questionings by sentries to let police inside a barracks. The police can make any probes or arrests, with the help of the military police, as they are warranted, with the military police at their orders. The police again and again, they must be very well restructured, equipped and trained to grow in them the integrities required of them so that, they will respect their duty, themselves and the rights of citizens. Nonetheless, unfortunately for the Gambia, the coup plotters have brought to a standstill, the country’s young and trying democratic process, by disabling the very fundamental functions of the most competent law enforcement body, the police, which is a very grave treasonable charge! A country without a sane functioning police authority and departments is like a country without a constitution. That was exactly the situation in the Gambia for the past twenty two years, as the military/militia became the very fearful lawless enforcers, was all a testimony. If coups are a treasonable crime, then the 1994 coup plotters (those of the council) in my view, have to be prosecuted by a competent law court of the Gambia for that terrible outstanding crime of toppling a democratically elected government. The coup plotters have to face a lot of charges even before answering to their evident masterminding of assassinations of fellow members of the army and also private citizens.
If the coup that amounted to the status quo where all sorts of state sanctioned murders, tortures, incarcerations, abductions and looting of national resources were committed, then should anyone miss to figure out what serious charges lay ahead for Yaya and his junta.
Who had worked in the government because their intention was to truly serve the Gambian people, and those who had worked in the government all along, in some cases without portfolios, with intentions to entrench the terrible regime for their selfish interests, are two distinguishable groups of roll calls that must be left to the screening of the prosecutors, with that expected integrity and expertize in their capacities.
The killers squads, made up of personnel of various Yaya-serving-security-agencies and private-cittizen-accomplices on pay roll (food, vehicles and residence), and Yaya and the junta, whom they alleged ordered them to abduct and kill, arraign and summarily execute, torture etc. must also be left to the prosecutors with that expected integrity and expertize in their capacities.
What @Sidi’s intention is clear quite clear. He is trying to dictate what kind of fact, evidence or allegations should be regarded or disregarded by prosecutors, if the living four traitors are brought to trial. It shouldn’t be a surprise to seea@Sidi in his writings recently, as his position long ago clearly indicates a No Case and No Remorse in atrocities of the Yaya regime. Reading between his writings, one must be very dumb not to notice his threats to the democratic process of the Gambia. All in all, what @Sidi tries to imply is; that will be no peace if Yaya, his council and cohorts are made to face justice. Anyway, we still have it fresh in our minds that some weapons and strange members of the GAF are missing!
If I were a police chief in the Gambia, I’ll suggest you be closely watched. I will seek military intelligence sharing by Ecomig in monitoring your activities.
@Kinteh Kemo, I doubt @Sidi needs a referral to the Nuremberg trials as there all indications of his mindset that, he is capable of being an executioner himself at a concentration camp, if one should exist in 2020.
Seedy Njie and a few others of their camp, all are breaking down and their is no way they can help themselves not to….. What do they actually know?
I am adamant to believing that the police have a formidable duty to be a part and parcel of the process in both commissions. Commissions? I have never differentiated between a Janneh Commission and a TRRC till recently somewhere in the threads but I still don’t worry much about that protocol because like @Sidi, I’m also clearly far from being exposed to the sense of democracy, rule of law, justice and human right values.
Mr Bourne and Kinteh Kemo you are all absolutely right in what you are saying about Mr Bojang. It saddened me greatly that there are some amongst us who have no empathy for victims of the horrendous crimes committed during the military dictatorship. He has been on this forum for years defending the indefensible, he’s no different from those who deny that the holocaust ever took place.
It is quite clear to all that none of you were trying to exonerate Mr Kanyi but rather to explain to us different legal implication involved in the TRRC process.
Most of the APRC supporters will not accept the truth even if it smacks them right in the face.