Gambia’s runaway fugitive Kukoi Samba Sanyang has reportedly died at a hospital in the Malian capital Bamako where he has been living since his expulsion from Senegal in March.
Reports from several sources in the Malian capital claimed that Mr. Sanyang, who was behind the abortive 1981 coup against the democratically elected government of former president Dawda Jawara in which scores of people were killed, died around 3pm on Tuesday.
Sources say he was over the past few weeks taken ill and admitted in a Bamako hospital for an undisclosed sickness.
His health was said to have deteriorated in recent days.
Sanyang was in March expelled from Senegal where he has been staying, provoking a chorus of disapproval from human rights concerns critical over his alleged mistreatment in the hands of the Senegalese authorities.
Thirty two years ago the long running fugitive had led a rebellion in Gambia, the bloodiest in the country’s history before fleeing across the border into Guinea Bissau from where he made his way to Cuba.
The 61 year old had later resurfaced in several rebel wars in the West African sub-region most notably in Liberia where he was reputed to have been one of warlord Charles Taylor’s most trusted aides.
He reportedly led a shadowy life in Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau and Libya where he was a close aide to late Muammar Gaddafi.