Friday, November 25, 2016

Gambia's former Interior Minister Ousman Sonko speaks to Spanish authorities

Ousman Sonko in Parliament 
Until last September when he decided to flee The Gambia to seek asylum, first in Sweden and then in Spain, Ousman Sonko was Yaya Jammeh's longest-serving Interior Minister and one of the most trusted of the dictator's collaborators.

He survived 10 years in a highly sensitive position partly because of his quiet and secretive demeanor that suits his role in one of the world's most violent regimes.  Now, he's talking.

The Gambia is known for its idiosyncratic leader who claimed to have discovered the cure for HIV/AIDS, cordoned off an entire village and force-fed dozens of its inhabitants with a liquid hallucinogen that led to some deaths and suggested that United Nations Secretary General should go to hell are a few of the Gambian dictator's quackery and insolent behavior.  Jammeh is also notorious for killing, torturing, maiming and exiling his political opponents, a violent culture that is well documented by international human rights organizations as well as bilateral partners.
Gambian dictator Yaya Jammeh 

Either in his role as Commander of the Presidential Guard or as Interior Minister, Ousman Sonko oversaw the assassination of journalist Deyda Hydara, the assassination attempt on the life of a senior and respected lawyer, Ousman Sillah, the disappearance of another journalist Chief Ebrima Manneh, National Intelligence Agency Director General, Daba Marenah, Alpha Bah, Ebou Lowe and several their military colleagues. other colleagues.

Our source also tell us that the former Interior Minister is explaining, in detail, his role and that of his former boss, in these and numerous other cases involving murder, assassination, disappearances.

Ousman Sonko is, according to our source, talking also to American authorities about the disappearances of Alhagie Mamut Ceesay and Ebou Jobe, two American-Gambians who were said to have been abducted by men believed to be state security agents in 2013 while on a visit to the country of their birth.

These are just a few of the stories that the former Interior Minister have addressed with authorities in Spain and perhaps as well as intelligence authorities in Senegal and Sweden after he fled The Gambia last September.  In his bid to secure asylum, we can report that Ousman Sonko, is now cooperating fully with the Spanish authorities.

The fact that Ousman Sonko whom we described in previous blogs as Jammeh's one man killing machine has decided to cooperate with Spanish authorities is going to make a lot of members of the regime uneasy.  We have come to learn how General Lang Tombong Tamba convinced Jammeh to put in place his anti-Mandinka policy in place by purging the senior level officers in the military and security establishment that resulted in the murder, imprisonment and dismissals of many Mandinka army officers.

In our subsequent blogs, we will look at specific cases, in detail, to help shed new light in one of Africa's most brutal, dark and sinister dictatorships, ever.