The noose has tightened around an alleged death squad member blamed for a rash of killings, disappearances, torture and rape during former president Yahya Jammeh’s 22-year rule in The Gambia.
General Bora Colley is being detained at the main military barracks in Yundum 26km south of the capital Banjul after a tip off following his surreptitious return to the country.
The Gambia Armed Forces in a statement on Saturday confirmed the arrest and detention of the ex-Brigadier and former senior GAF officer who had fled shortly after the departure of Mr. Jammeh to Equatorial Guinea in January 2017.
”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” the statement said.
GAF spokesman Lamin K. Sanyang said it would revealed the details about how General Colley reentered the jurisdiction of The Gambia.
Colley has been wanted after benn adversely mentioned in connection with a series of human rights violations as an alleged member of the ‘Junglers’, a special hit squad at the disposal of Mr Jammeh to which he issued orders, according to testimonies at the truth commission set up to catalogue abuse under his watch.
Truth commission testimonies linked him to some of the violations along with other fugitives including Sana Manjang who is still at large apparently in Guinea Bissau.
The government led by Jammeh’s successor, Adama Barrow recently declared its intention to prosecute crimes thought to have been committed between July 1994 and January 2017.
Last month the West African bloc Ecowas turned down a request by the Barrow administration to contribute to the process of prosecuting those alleged crimes, saying it would be interfering with Gambia’s internal search for justice.
Jammeh who had refused to vacate power after losing the 2016 election to Mr Barrow despite initially conceding defeat has been living in exile in Equatorial Guinea since he was forced out by a, Ecowas-led military coalition.
The victims of abuse and their families have been urging the government to act on the recommendations of the truth and reconciliation commission to prosecute alleged crimes linked to Mr Jammeh who came to power in a bloodless coup in 1994 and ruled with an iron fist unil his ouster 22 years later.
WN/as/APA