Jungler: Jammeh’s hit squad killed journalist Deyda Hydara

A Living Mirror, a book on the life of Deyda Hydara by Demba Ali Jawo and Aloe Ahmed Alota (Photo: The Point)

By Modou S. Joof

President Yahya Jammeh’s hit squad, the Junglers, killed journalist Deyda Dydara, the Gambia Truth Commission heard on Monday.

An ex-member of the autocratic leader’s assassin team, Malick Jatta, said he and three other assassins fired the gunshots that killed the journalist on December 16, 2004.

Hydara was co-founder of The Point newspaper, and a correspondent of Agence France-Presse, AFP and Reporters Without Borders, RSF. He was known to be a fierce critic of Jammeh and his tyranny and had questioned his desire to prolong his stay in power.

The ‘Magic Pen’

Jatta told the Commission that in 2004 he, Tumbul Tamba, Sanna Manjang, and Alieu Jeng, all serving members of the Gambian army, were told to go for the “Magic Pen” – the code name for their target, Hydara.

“I shot, Sanna Manjang fired and Alieu Jeng also fired,” Jatta said of the operation that left the former President of the Gambia Press Union with bullets in his stomach and chest.

Jatta and his fellow assassins were paid D50, 000 (a little over $1600 at the time).

He said a day after the assassination Tumbul Tamba came with an envelope containing some dollars and said: “Gentlemen, this is a token of appreciation from the Big Man [Yahya Jammeh].” “When I changed mine, it was over D50, 000,” he said.

Jatta had participated in two extrajudicial killings before Hydara’s on the 13^th anniversary of The Point in a drive by shooting in Kanifing.

Jatta said they were on board a taxi [a Mercedes Benz 200 model] and as they approached Hydara’s vehicle, Tumbul told the killing team “gentlemen the driver is the idiot” – what followed were gun shots on Hydara.

Two staff of The Point who were in the rare of Hydara’s car sustained injuries.

Killed by junglers

Gambian journalists had for 15 years pointed accusing fingers on Jammeh for the murder of the journalist, and in one occasion, the Press Union said his government cannot be absolved of the murder until it proves otherwise.

Four days before Jatta’s confession, Pap Saine, a co-owner of The Point told the Truth Commission that “there is no doubt that it was Jammeh’s junglers who killed Deyda.” “Nobody can dispute that,” he said on July 18.

CPJ Africa Programme Coordinator, Angela Quintal, said “Jammeh should be extradited to Gambia without delay to stand trial for the murder of Hydara and other abuses carried out during his rule.”

In 2005, Hydara was posthumously honoured with a PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award. He is also named among “Heroes of African Journalism” by the African Editors Forum (TAEF) in October 2010.

A former Deejay at Radio Syd, Deyda Hydara is survived by his wife and his five children. 

In May 2019, the Gambia government paid compensation of $50,000 to Deyda’s family for failure to properly investigate his killing. The payment was in fulfillment of a 2010 judgement of the Abuja-based ECOWAS Court of Justice.

Reign of terror

 Jammeh took over power as a young army officer in a July 22, 1994 coup.

His reign is characterized by massive rights abuses that included murders, disappearances, torture, rape, imprisonment, arbitrary arrests, a government-sanctioned ‘witch-hunting’ among others targeted mainly at journalists, the opposition, ordinary Gambians and students involved in peaceful demonstrations.

Jammeh, who ruled the tiny West African country for 22 years which activists described as a “reign of terror”, was forced to step-down in January 2017 by ECOWAS forces after he refused to cede power following an election defeat to current president, Adama Barrow.

 

RELATED [BACKGROUND] STORIES

Who Killed Deyda Hydara? http://thenorthbankeveningstandard.blogspot.com/2012/01/who-killed-deyda-hydara.html

Seven Years and Counting: Deyda’s Killers Remain At large http://thenorthbankeveningstandard.blogspot.com/2011/12/seven-years-and-counting-deydas-killers.html#more

Veteran journalist shot dead https://cpj.org/2004/12/veteran-journalist-shot-dead.php