Sanna B. Sabally, former vice chairman of the AFPRC Junta, has narrated his hellish nightmare at the hands of Jammeh’s torturers during his imprisonment at the notorious Mile Two Prison.

Sabally told the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission on the second day of his testimony that Alagie Martin and his team inflicted the worst form of torture and degrading and inhumane treatment on him and Sadibou Hydara.

Hydara was the Interior Minister of the AFPRC government in 1995 when he was arrested with Sana Sabally for an alleged assassination attempt on the then Junta leader and head of state, Captain Yahya Jammeh.

However Sabally said that version of event was ‘untrue’ and that they were arrested after they fell out with Jammeh when he reneged on the six months transition for the AFPRC Junta government.

He said he was arrested after being lured into Jammeh’s office by Kalifa Bajinka, Almamo Manneh, Malafi Corr, Musa Jammeh, Batch Samba Jallow and Alagie Martin

“They disarmed me and brought me down. My hands and legs were tied. Sadibou Hydara also fell for the same trap. When he was arrested Edward Singhateh pointed a gun on Sadibou’s forehead.  I told him not to fire at him. We were bundled out of the State House through Jammeh’s office into a waiting car at the rear gate and taken to Mile Two,” Sabally said.

He said it is at Mile Two that he faced the worst experience of his life. He was court-martialled on trump up charges and jailed for nine years.

Sabally he was regularly tortured and beaten by a torture team from the State Guard led by WO2 Alagie Martin, now a Brigadier General in the Gambia Armed Forces. He said Martin’s team included Manlafi Corr, Pa Modou Sarr, Lance Corporal Lamin Senghore, Private Baboucarr Bobb, Batch Samba Jallow and one Ndure from the police Tactical Support Group. He added that Manlafi Corr torture tool was a hammer which he used to beat him all over his body.

“Malafi Corr beat me with his hammer until I lost my tooth. There is no part of my body that they had not beaten with the hammer.”

He said he was water-boarded, forced to perform degrading sexual acts, forced to eat faeces and buried alive in a pit all in a bid to force him to make a confession that he wanted to assassinate Chairman Jammeh.

“They’d always come with a tape recorder. One day they came with a bucket of water. I was in two handcuffs and two shackles. I was naked. They covered my face with Piccadilly bag and soaked my head in the water. I later I realized that the water was acidic. They continued putting my head in that bucket until I fainted and that’s when they stopped.”

Sabally said he experienced waterboarding many times. He said one morning around 5am himself and Sadibou were dragged naked across the street to a beach near the prison.

“I was told it was a washing day – an order from Jammeh to take us for washing. It was very early in the morning between 3am to 5am.  The air was cold and windy. The sea water was at freezing temperature. We were handcuffed and shackled. Alagie Martun and his team held us under the water until we were about to drown and they revived us and continued the process again. They only stopped when we fainted.”

In what sounded like a scene for Dante’s Inferno, Sabally said they were

thrown into a waste pit – the place inmates emptied their human waste. “We tiptoed to avoid drowning in the pool of faeces and urine”.

As Sabally continued his testimony, the alleged torturing team led by Alagie Martin kept switching their brutalising method. He said the team used electric appliances to electrocute him on his tongue and penis.

He said when that failed to break him up, the team brought G-String and forced them to do sexual acts on each other.

“That was the first time in my life I heard about G-String. I was forced to have sex with Sadibou Hydara and we refused. They beat us mercilessly for refusing. They used the butt of gun. They used a thin iron like the spoke of a bicycle and put it in my penis. They ruptured my bladder. It was very painful.”

He said at all times, he was been tortured, he was always naked. He said there was a day when the tormentors used a pole and inserted it into his anus.

“Alagie Martin and Lamin Senghore were always present whenever we were being tortured,” Sabally said.

He said on another torture session Alagie Martin and his men forced him to defecate and eat it.

“They told me ‘today you have to defecate and eat your own faeces (poo). Alagie Martin (nicknamed Lagos) and Manlafi Corr told me that. My legs and hands were tied. I was forced to lie down on my back. They had forced me to defecate but I couldn’t. They went away and brought faeces which they put on my chest and forced me to lick it.   

“I tried to lick it but my tongue couldn’t reach it. Lance Corporal Sanneh out of anger threw the faeces on my face. I passed out due to shock and revulsion. Sadibou suffered the same fate with the faeces.”

Sabally said the torture meted on former Captain Sadibou Hydara by Alagie Martins and Manlafi Corr led to his untimely death.  He said the late Captain Hydara died on June 6, 1995 at 4:17 pm.

“Sadibou Hydara died in my hands. I watched him till he died,” Sabally told the Commission.

He said his death came about after he was beaten on his penis and testicles with an iron rod and hammer.   

“From this time until he died, he was bleeding everywhere in his body,” Sabally said.

He said that he also faced the same torture like Sadibou which was aimed at castrating him . He said he underwent medical treatment pon the completion of his jail term to be able to regain strength on penis.

“Now I am partly healed,” he said.