A former Gambian soldier has denied involvement in the assassination of prominent Gambian journalist Deyda Hydara.

Bai Lowe is on trial in Germany accused of belonging to a paramilitary death squad, the Jungler, implicated in the assassinations of opponents of former dictator Yahya Jammeh. 

Lowe, 47, is facing charges including crimes against humanity, murder and attempted murder, including the 2004 killing of AFP correspondent and The Point newspaper editor Deyda Hydara.

Hydara was gunned down in his car on the outskirts of Banjul on December 16, 2004.

Lowe is accused of having helped stop Hydara’s car before driving one of the killers in his own vehicle.

“I did not participate in these acts,” the defendant Bai Lowe’s lawyer told the court in the northern town of Celle, reading a statement by the accused.

Lowe, who granted interviews in the past to Gambian journalists in the diaspora, had implicated himself after explaining his involvement in the extrajudicial activities of the paramilitary group. 

However he told the court that he had intended to demonstrate to his fellow Gambians how cruel Jammeh’s regime was.

Human Rights Watch has called the proceedings “the first to prosecute human rights violations committed in Gambia during the Jammeh era on the basis of universal jurisdiction”.

Universal jurisdiction allows a foreign country to prosecute crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide, regardless of where they were committed.