A Gambian man, Bai Lowe, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a German court on Thursday for his involvement in a death squad that killed opponents of former ruler Yahya Jammeh.
Lowe was convicted of crimes against humanity, murder, and attempted murder for his role as a driver for the hit squad known as the Junglers.
Prosecutors had asked judges at the court in the northern town of Celle to hand a life sentence to Lowe, who denies the charges against him.
The Junglers unit was “used by the then-president of The Gambia to carry out illegal killing orders, among other things” with the aim of “intimidating the Gambian population and suppressing the opposition,” according to federal prosecutors.
The list of alleged crimes includes the 2004 killing of AFP correspondent Deyda Hydara, who was gunned down in his car on the outskirts of the Gambian capital Banjul on December 16, 2004.
Lowe was found to have helped stop Hydara’s car and drove one of the killers in his own vehicle.
The trial, which began last year, is “the first to tackle human rights violations committed in The Gambia during the Jammeh era on the basis of universal jurisdiction,” according to Human Rights Watch.
The legal principle allows a foreign country to prosecute crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide, regardless of where they were committed.
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