Sana Sabally took responsibility, but he basically blamed his actions on age, he was 27 years old. I am not sure what people should be doing at 27 years of age, but I bet killing and terrorizing people would be considered extremely abnormal and inexcusable anywhere in the world for a 27 year old to be proudly engaged in, regardless! Not only was Sana engaged in such horrific actions, he continually tried to justify them all through his testimony.

To try to accomplish his goal of justifying his brutal actions, Sana constantly painted a picture of war/battle, where one has to kill the enemy at all cost, including those who were captured and tied. In addition, Sana also continually attempted trashing the Geneva Convention at every chance and even called it “shit” at one point in his testimony.

In his efforts to further double down on his trashing of the Geneva Convention, Sana probably went home after being challenged by the Commission’s chairman who expressed disappointment in his ridiculous bashing of the Geneva Convention and did some quick research, to try to clarify his position.

So he returned the day after with the story of when the Emperor caught some enemy soldiers trying to scale the wall in Geneva in the sixteen hundreds and hanged them.

In Sana’s mind, the Geneva Convention, which was negotiated in the aftermath of the Second World War in 1949, was “shit” because of an event that happened in Geneva in the 1600s. But it was that same “shit” of a “Geneva Convention” that rescued him and gave him the chance to relocate to Germany and realized his dream of being in the medical field.

In essence, the Geneva Convention is “shit” when Sana Sabally is the law, but golden when Sana Sabally became victim!

Sana told us that he came to the TRRC to tell the truth about his role, but the truth was already established by multiple witnesses, and Sana only came to corroborate that “truth” and accepted responsibility.

According to him, he was not going to lie because others who were there under his command knew what happened. Sana also told us that when he sees people beating their chest claiming to have kicked Goloh out (including the President), dafdey hahatie beh halangu. But it’s the same Sana who sat there beating his chest about how he is not scared of anyone and will take a bullet in the chest any day. How ironic!

Let’s not forget that Sana is now a professionally trained counsellor in Germany; and what do counsellors do? – they work with the mind and know how the mind works, so he came well prepared. He’s had years to be prepared for this day because he knew it was coming. His every statement was calculated, and his every defence reinforced, including the trashing of the Geneva Convention and the Junta’s right to take over the government at the time, despite the illegality of their actions.

In his closing remarks, Sana pleaded with the TRRC and the current government to intervene because the German project he was working on in Senegal was halted by the German authorities, and offered his psychotherapy service free of charge to his victims.

Did the German authorities halt the project when “shit” hit the fan and they became aware of Sana’s crimes? With the Holocaust in their past and the human rights violations that happened there, the last thing the Germans want is to associate themselves with such crimes, they will quickly distance themselves from it. And with Sana’s offer of psychotherapy free of charge, it is nothing but a case of “ma reye la beh parey jaleh la”, something the Junta was good at.

In conclusion, Sana was a 27-year-old who thought it was justified to stage a military coup to correct the corruption, and part of that correction was to kill, torture, and abuse citizens.

And also once in a while, find nurses who skipped work and went to their boyfriend’s houses, knock on the door (pam pam), tell them that you were Chairman Sabally, and dragged them back to work. Waiting for them to show up to work was not an option.

Throughout his testimony, Sana talked about forgiveness and reconciliation, but he forgot to mention justice. Yes Sana came voluntarily to tell the truth that was already established, but telling the truth doesn’t exonerate anyone from the crime of murder, and that’s why there is no statute of limitation for murder. Let justice guide our actions.

By Momodou Ndow