Ms. Kessler who conducted an administrative procedure concerning Bai L.’s asylum application, was heard as second witness on May 9, 2022, she described her memories of the information stated by Bai L. during his application for asylum in Germany.
She remembered that according to his application, until 2010 Bai L. said that he didn’t kill anyone, only saw people getting killed. She recalled that according to her memories of the file, Bai L. mentioned that he was involved in the killing of Hydara and that he was the one driving the car to the killing scene.
She added in her testimony that in 2014, there was an attempted coup against former president Jammeh and the state institution in the Gambia, in which Bai L. was suspected of being involved.
Judge Günther and Ms. Kessler went through some of the files created at the time of the asylum application. Ms. Kessler reported that Bai L. only spoke about the killing of Hydara. According to the files, Bai L. stated that Hydara was killed with a hunting gun.
According to the file, Bai L. further stated that army soldiers had a close relationship to the President Jammeh, and the army soldiers got special orders including for executions, from President Jammeh.
Additionally, according to information included in the file, Bai L. was accused of being involved in a coup attempt in 2014, but he rejected the accusation because he was not in the Gambia at that time. It was actually stated in the asylum application file that Bai L. thought about leaving the army because of fear.
Ms. Kessler stated that, although she decided upon many asylum cases filed by Gambian citizens, Bai L.’s case was the only one where the killing orders from Jammeh were mentioned.
The trial monitoring project is carried out in cooperation with Human Rights Watch, TRIAL International, the International Commission of Jurists. Trial notes and other information are provided by students of the Georg-August-University of Göttingen, supervised and coordinated by Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Kai Ambos and his team at the Department of Foreign and International Criminal Law, as well as the Göttingen chapter of the European Law Students’ Association (ELSA)
