A police officer, Lamin Badjie, has denied taking part in any killings but accepted to have worked with members of former President Jammeh’s death squad, the Jungulers.

Testifying before the Truth Reconciliation and Reparation Commission on Tuesday, Mr. Badjie denied any involvement in crimes alleged to have been committed by members of the infamous hit squad, the Jungulers.

He said: “I have never participated in any killing or torture. I am not a Junguler because you would be a Junguler when you did the training and I didn’t undergo any of it (the Junguler training).”

Mr. Badjie said he and two other police officers – Momodou I Busso and Lamin Sambou – were inducted into the Gambia Armed Forces in 2012 after completing a VIP training, saying they were selected out of over 40 police officers who had undergone the training.

On the nine death row inmates

Mr. Badjie told the Commission that he went with the Junglers into the range where the nine death row inmates were cold bloodedly murdered by members of Jammeh’s hit men but denied taking part in any of their killings, adding that he saw the dead bodies lying on the ground at the range in a bush near Cassamance.

He added that: “Nyabally told me we took a nylon bag and put them over their heads and suffocated them to death – then I asked him why didn’t you use your pistols and he replied to me that ‘then the blood would have been too much’. He told me that we have killed them all in the car by suffocating them to death.”

Lamin Badjie was arrested in 2017 after being implicated in human rights abuses by the Barrow-led government and detained for sixteen months before his released this year.

Reporting by Adama Makasuba