Alieu Badara Sowe, a former reporter of the Point Newspaper and the defunct Daily Observer, has told the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission that his exiled took a heavy toll on his family life.

Mr Sowe said he fled to the United Kingdom leaving his wife seven months pregnant with their daughter.

“When I was leaving my daughter wasn’t born, she was in a womb…and my daughter was born in my absence. After ten years of her life I didn’t have time to spend with her and she sadly died when she was fourteen years,” he told the Truth Commission.

He said he went into exile after his arbitrary sacking at the defunct Daily Observer over a report he did in Guinea Bissau during that country’s political impasse. He said that he went there to talk to Gambians residing in Bissau about their welfare.

Mr. Sowe was arrested multiple times by the former regime over his reporting at the defunct Daily Observer.

He said he was arrested in 1999 over a story he wrote headlined ‘shooting at Kanilai’.

He said he was arrested and detained at the National Intelligent Agency for several days, adding that he was kept in a room that was 1.5 to 2 meters in size which he described to have been smelling blood.

Mr Sowe said some drunk NIA officers came banging their guns on the table in the room he was been kept and that they were intimidating him with all sort of derogatory words.

“Some four to five men came and ask me to remove my clothes, my trousers and watch and asked me to walk out while escorting and tormenting me.

They were banging their guns on the table, they were moving around me intimidating me.”

However, he said he was offered a job by the National Intelligent Agency the day he was released but turned down the offer, adding that he told the NIA officers that he didn’t join the journalism profession for money.

Mr. Sowe explained his 1995 arrest to the commission. He said that he was arrested along with Pap Saine and Brima Earnest and detained at the Banjul Police Station where they slept on the floor and cardboards for two days.

“They took us to Banjul Police Station where we were locked up with burglars and murderers for two days.

“I would say about a dozen in a cell. It was cramped with terrible smell and mosquito infested.The cell was very small, we were never allowed a change of clothes,” he said.

Mr Sowe said they were later charged with the publication of false news with intent to cause fear and alarm to the public and dragged to the Banjul Magistrate Court for prosecution which took 5 to 6 months of trial. They were discharged after the judge upheld their no case to answer.

Reporting by Adama Makasuba