Sanna B, Sabally who briefly served as the deputy chairman of Gambia’s erstwhile military junta has taken full responsibility for the executions of soldiers accused of leading a foiled coup in November 1994.
“I am responsible for the execution of the ringleaders who were captured in connection with the foiled coup” Sabally told the Truth Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) in his maiden appearance on Wednesday.
In a testimony lasting over five hours, Sabally, a star witness, attempted to justify the execution of Lt Basiru Barrow and Lt Abdoulie Dot Faal, saying the coup suspects were lined up and shot because they were enemies of the state who had plot to kill the members of the military ruling council who had seized power four months earlier.
The former junta vice chairman accepted full individual responsibility even if the then chairman of the Armed Forces Provincial Ruling Council (AFPRC) Yahya Jammeh had instructed all the coup ringleaders be executed.
Without mincing words, Sabally said as the military officer who took full charge of the operations to foil the coup, he was taking full responsibility for the executions that followed it, although this offered no joy to him or anyone involbed in reaching such a decision including those who made up the ruling military council at the time.
When asked by lead counsel Essa Fall whether the rules of the Geneva Convention should have been applied by the junta when the coupists became prisoners, Sabally excused himself, dismissing this international standard as a ‘dead letter law’ that has no relevance in theatres of war.
Faal however made it clear that the situation was not like in a war zone.
Meanwhile, the chair of the TRRC, Lamin J Sise also interjected just before he adjourned the hearing to Thursday, saying it was ‘shocking’ for Sabally to dismiss the Geneva Convention as nothing significant.
Commissioner Sise said such an international convention took more than one hundred years to develop and is necessary to regulate the standards of conflict even if wars cannot be abolished.
He said he would not want the TRRC to be the stage where such standards are unfairly ridiculed and dismissed as worthless by a small country like The Gambia.
The then gaunt lieutenant who played a central role in executing the 22nd July 1994 coup which brought Jammeh to power was the vice chairman of the AFPRC which emerged after the successful insurrection.
Gambians were seeing him for the first time in public for over 16 years.
Now looking plump and confident in a flowing traditional dress, the bespectacled Sabally earlier in his testimony apologised to the Gambian nation after accepting responsibility for a series of torture and other violations thought to have been committed by his orderlies who allegedly fired at and beat people who had crossed path with his speeding convoy which was usually heavily armed.
When Counsel Faal put it to him that one such victim was Alo Bah, a female roadside seller who claimed she was shot by members of his convoy in 1995, Sabally said the incident is deeply regrettable and he was therefore apologising to the aggrieved party for what happened.
“If I have the opportunity to apologise in front of the people I have wronged in the past…I am very sorry Gambians, I am very sorry” Sabally said at the prompting of Counsel Faal.
Prior to his testimony, Sabally’s name had surfaced severally during the testimonies of successive witnesses to the TRRC who gave graphic details of his alleged involvement in cases of egregious violations including torture and executions between July 1994 and January 1995 when he was vice chairman of the AFPRC junta.
Sabally who eventually fell out with junta leader Jammeh and was arrested and convicted for treason and felony was living in exile in Germany before reports last month suggested he had resurfaced in neighbouring Senegal from where he had travelled to Gambia to testify.
Given his landmark role in the first few months of military rule in The Gambia, his testimony may drag on for more than two days.
AS/APA