Jammeh’s Spy Chief Charged With Murder

Head of the Gambian National Intelligence Agency and the chief spy, under exiled Yahya Jammeh was on Thursday charged before a Banjul court for the murder of an opposition youth leader who died in detention in 2016.

Yankuba Badjie and the Director of Operations, Sheikh Jeng, along with eight other officers were charged.

The charges were part of attempts by President Adama Barrow to re-establish democracy in the small West African nation.

Barrow had released dozens of opposition activists from prison since he took office on Jan. 19, replacing Yahya Jammeh, who ruled the Islamic republic for the last 22 years with an iron fist.

Jammeh caused weeks of political impasse by refusing to accept the result of the December presidential election before going into exile in Equatorial Guinea.

Badjie took over at the intelligence agency in 2013, with Jeng as his deputy.

During their tenure, the intelligence agency carried out kidnappings, arbitrary arrests, torture, killings and rape, according to international human rights activists.