A former police officer has claimed that UN officials sent to investigate the 2005 migrants massacre in The Gambia were given alcohol and women in a bid to influence their investigation.

Bubacarr Bah made the damning allegation at the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) on Thursday. 

Mr Bah claimed that the former police Crime Management Coordinator Yankuba Sonko, who is now the Minister of Interior, told him they have given alcohol and women to the UN investigators and urged him not to provide any information to them. 

The investigators were in the country as part of an international investigation into the death of 50 West African migrants who were killed by security forces under the command of former president Yahya Jammeh after they were accused of being mercenaries. 

The sole Ghanaian survivor Martin Kyere said they were travelling to Europe when they were apprehended in Gambian waters by security forces and taken to Barra police station before being transferred to Serrekunda. 

Mr Bah, who was a CID officer at Barra Police Station in 2005, told the TRRC : “He [Yankuba Sonko] said to me, ‘these UN people are coming here, make sure if you’re called, make sure you don’t say anything. They were here but then we took them to bars, gave them alcohol and women’.”

The Commissioners were shocked by this damning allegation, which if it turned out to be true would discredit the UN fact finding investigation report.

Mr Bah maintained that his allegation was true. 

“I have sworn … what I’m saying is the truth. I will not swear here and lie. He said ‘they drank alcohol and got women and they left but this is our country, in case they’re going to come back, don’t talk to them’.”

Mr Bah also told the TRRC that the brutal massacre of the West African migrants was ‘unbelievable’ and that the perpetrators of one of the most heinous crimes in The Gambia should be prosecuted. 

“Those who are responsible for this act, they should not be forgiven. They should face the full force of the law,” Mr Bah said.