The
Minister of Information, Communication & Infrastructure has stated that
justice must be served for Deyda Hydara, Chief Manneh, Omar Barrow and other
journalists who were subjected to torture at the hands of agents of Yahya
Jammeh’s regime.
Minister
Jawo made this remark on Wednesday at a symposium to mark the commemoration of
the World Press Freedom Day, held at the Faculty of Law, University of The
Gambia.
He
told journalists that his Ministry intends to pursue media law reform because
some laws are not media friendly and that they will introduce laws that are in
line with best practice in other parts of the world.
He
stressed that truth and reconciliation is the watchword of the Government but
it will happen in the absence of their colleagues like Deyda Hydara, Chief
Ebrima Manneh, Omar Barrow and other journalists who have been victims of the
former regime.
“I
can assure you that in the process of setting up the truth and reconciliation
commission there will not be any amnesty for those who bear responsibility for
the atrocities committed against people,” he said.
Deyda
Hydara, a prominent Gambian journalist and editor, was murdered on 16 December
2004, when driving home after having celebrated 13 years of The Point
newspaper.
He
had long been a critic of the government and had been warned by the authorities
for taking a ‘hostile’ tone against the government in his column “Good Morning
Mr President”.
The
Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS) has delivered a stinging rebuke against the Gambian National
Intelligence Agency (NIA) for having failed to properly investigate the murder
of Mr Hydara. An initial investigation started by the police was taken over by
the NIA on the orders of former President Yahya Jammeh.
The
evidence suggested that this investigation only took 18 days, after which the
NIA produced just an interim report.
In
one of their final judgments before retiring from the regional bench, Justices
Hansine Donli, Awa Nana Daboya, and Anthony Benin concluded that the NIA was
not impartial, as they had been accused of complicity in the assassination:
“one cannot investigate a crime when it is itself the accused”.
The
court found, in a ruling issued on June 10, that there was a climate of
impunity in The Gambia, “stifling freedom of expression”.
The
ruling was a victory for Deyda Hydara’s youngest son, Deyda Hydara Jr, who
brought a challenge on behalf of the family to the ECOWAS Community Court of
Justice, joined by the African chapter of the International Federation of
Journalists (IFJ-Africa).
The
process involved legal submissions on behalf of the claimants and the Government
of The Gambia, as well as the live testimony of two witnesses.
Deyda
Hydara’s death violated the right to life, which “imposes an obligation on
states to investigate all acts of crime and bring perpetrators to book”.
While
the initial police investigation was taken over by the NIA, who had issued a
short interim report, “no other investigations were carried out”.
The court was particularly critical of the
failure to carry out ballistic tests on the bullets recovered from the victims,
and from firearms belonging to suspects, which the court considered to be
“baffling”, concluding that “without a ballistic examination one could not
conclude that a proper investigation had been carried out”, and that “every gun
recovered from every suspect” should have been subjected to such tests.
The
police had failed to promptly interview the two witnesses, who were in the car
at the time of the assassination, save for a bungled attempt to visit them in
hospital, for which the officers had not sought permission nor brought any
identification with them.
The
court could not see why the police would refuse to disclose their identity, and
refuse a harmless request for an official communication, if their motive had
really been to question the witnesses.
“It
seems to us that these events must have scared the eyewitnesses to flee the
country and it was a reasonable and wise precaution to take in the
circumstances,” it was concluded.
There
were accusations of state collusion in the killing. One of the witnesses told
the police that some personnel from the NIA had followed her to Senegal in
order to eliminate her.
For
the court, this cast into doubt the impartiality of the investigation: “Justice
would not seem to have been done in this case as the very body which was accused
of complicity was the very one charged with the responsibility to investigate,”
it was stated.
“The
NIA was not an impartial body in the circumstances. The duty to conduct
investigations imposed on a State involves the duty to be impartial, fair and
just. One cannot be a judge in his own cause, so too one cannot investigate a
crime when it is itself the accused.”
It
was clear from the evidence that little had been done to find the truth. The
court concluded that “since February 2005 no attempt has been made to conduct
any meaningful investigations into the murder of the deceased”.
A
Daily Observer reporter, Manneh, was reportedly arrested by state security
after attempting to republish a BBC report criticizing President Yahya Jammeh
shortly before an African Union meeting in Banjul; his arrest was witnessed by coworkers
Though
ordered to release Manneh by an Economic Community of West African States
court, the Gambian government denied that Manneh was imprisoned.
According
to AFP, an unnamed police source confirmed Manneh’s arrest in April 2009, but
added he believed Manneh “is no longer alive”.
In
June 2009, Manneh received the Special Award for Journalism under Threat from
Amnesty International.
Amnesty
International considers him to be a prisoner of conscience and named him a 2011
“priority case”.
The
Committee to Protect Journalists has also called for his release and demanded
that authorities account for his disappearance.
The
Committee described his arrest as part of “a climate of fear created by the
unsolved murder of prominent Gambian editor Deyda Hydara, a series of unsolved
arsons of media houses, and a pattern of government intimidation and
prosecution of journalists”.
Omar
Barrow was also a journalist who was killed during the April 11, 2000 student
massacre where over 12 students were killed by agents of former president Yahya
Jammeh.
It
is 17 years now and their killing still remains a mystery. The victims and
their families are still waiting for justice to be served.