Friday, June 21, 2019
Brigadier General Alagie Martin(aka Lagos), inspector general of The Gambia Armed Forces yesterday, 20 June, 2019 appeared before the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC), chaired by Dr. Lamin J. Sise to testify on his alleged involvement in the torture of of Sana Sabally, Sadibou Hydara, Colonel Babucarr Sanyang and his role in the abortive march, 2006 coup led by late Ndure Cham, the then Chief of Defence Staff (CDS)of the Gambia Armed Forces.
He told the Commission that beating of detainees was an integral part of investigations and that they carried out Yahya Jammeh’s orders because at that time, the situation was very tense and terrible.
“When Jammeh give you orders to do something, you dare not refuse,” he stated.
Brig. Gen. Martin who had made apparent denial to the beatings and tortures of detainees could not explain or convince the Commission that the Never Again slogan he was chanting would not happen again.
He was apologetic and informed the Commission that he regretted all his actions, hence asked for forgiveness from all Gambians including victims like Sana Sabally, Babucarr Sanyang, late Sadibou Hydara, Babou Janha, Bunja Darboe amongst others and their families.
“During the regime of Ex-president Jammeh, the country was tough, no discipline, no trust, there were coups and counter-coups, the mindset of the army was a problem,” he said.
He admitted he knew what happened then was wrong, but emphasised that the Never Again should there be a coup in the Gambia, adding that the CDS, Lt. Gen. Masanneh Kinteh and senior military cadre in the Gambia Armed forces are working on a road map to ensure that there would never be coup again.
Brig. Gen. Alagie Martin, born in September 27, 1964 told the Commission that he was enlisted into the Gambia National Gendarmerie in 1982, did his recruit training for 6 months and also attended Commando training in Turkey.
Brig. Gen. Martin stated that he was part of the Tactical Support Unit in 1994 when the coup took place and was deployed to Denton Bridge to prevent the mutineers led by Yahya Jammeh from crossing the bridge.
He further stated that they were given instructions not to allow any soldier cross the bridge. As a result, they arrested RSM Jeng when they arrived at the bridge but when the Yahya Jammeh’s group arrived, they observed that they had sophisticated arsenals than they had and Captain Suwareh, their leader advised them not to use the syndrome of 1981 style but to surrender to them so as to avoid carnage.
The witness who initially disclosed that he never knew that the soldiers were going to carry out a coup-d-etat later admitted that he knew the mutiny was a coup when they arrived at the Christian cemetery in Banjul after they met Binneh Minteh there and followed them to the State House.
He recalled he was a close protection officer for Yahya Jammeh during the first six months of the AFPRC regime.
He told the Commission that he was present at the State House on the night of November 11, 1994.
He disclosed that he heard Yahya Jammeh order the council members to crush the coup plotters.
Brig. Gen. Martin revealed that he was among the officers that arrested Sana Sabally, adding that Sabally’s arrest was supervised by Edward Singhateh, Musa Jammeh and Almamon Manneh.
He explained that Sana Sabally was arrested at the door in the corridor to his office and dragged outside, noting that Sana Sabally was fully armed and had explosives on him.
Brig. Gen. Martin told the Commission that he was involved on two occasions in the investigation of Sana Sabally’s alleged coup plot to overthrow Yahya Jammeh.
The witness said Sabally was beaten because he resisted arrest but finally subdued him and took him to Mile 2 Prisons where he was locked at the security wing.
He stated that after the arrest and detention of Sana Sabally, Yahya Jammeh gave him orders to make follow up investigations to ascertain the others who were involved in his plan.
He told the Commission that he led a team of state guard officers comprising Almamo Manneh, Musa Jammeh, Malafi Corr, Omar Ndure and others to the security wing on their 1st investigation during which Sana Sabally mentioned Babucarr Sanyang as one of the officers who usually visits him.
Brig. Gen. Martin further told the Commission that Sana Sabally was beaten mercilessly because he refused to give them answers to the questions they asked him.
He disclosed that there were three groups that were tasked to investigate Sana Sabally, Sadibou Hydara and Babucarr Sanyang.
He explained that they were his group, the Almamo Manneh group and Musa Jammeh group.
He noted that his group was directly tasked to investigate Sana Sabally but Musa Jammeh’s and Almamo Manneh’s group was tasked with investigating Sadibou Hydara and Babucarr Sanyang.
He told the Commission that Sabally was not only beaten but was tortured by placing plastic bag over his head.
He denied using hammer and electrocuting Sana Sabally and denied participation in the beating and torture of Sadibou Hydara whom he called a good friend and colleague in the army.
Brig. Gen. Martin explained that it was during his 2nd visit to the security wing that his team comprising Lamin Senghore alias Assasin, Malafi Corr, Modou Sarr and Nduer that they dealt with Sana Sabally and Babucarr Sanyang.
He denied taking Sana Sabally out from Mile 2 Prisons and across the road to the beach to water board him and also hanging him from a ceiling as alleged by the latter in his testimony before the Commission.
Brig. Gen. Alagie Martin recalled that his role in the investigations of the 2006 abortive coup led by Colonel Ndure Cham was to escort the military officers from Mile 2 Prisons to the NIA headquarters and back.
He explained that the system was such that there were different teams with different functions but they were put together with the objective of extracting confessions from the detainees.
He pointed out that the NIA was given responsibility to investigate the detainees, whilst the junglers were responsible for the arrest of the detainees.
He denied slapping Colonel Bunja Darboe but insisted that it was the junglers that beat and tortured him.
Martin further denied giving Colonel Bunja Darboe a sheet of paper to write the supposedly speech he was alleged to read had the 2006 coup succeeded and also denied giving Sana Sabally paper to write his statement.
The Point Newspaper
Author: Bruce Asemota
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