By Adama Makasuba
Former Gambia Soldier, Lamin Senghore, code name ‘assassin’ has denied taking part in any human rights crimes throughout his military career.
Mr. Senghore, 46, was testifying before The Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparation Commission on Monday.
Senghore, whose name has been mentioned by many witnesses before the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparation Commission, was among the soldiers who attacked and captured both Yundum and Fajara Barracks, but has claimed that he witnessed no torture or killings.
As a member of the 1994 coup, he says the loyalists of the coup on 22 July 1994 went onto the Banjul-Brikama highway and hijack two trucks and used those as transportation to Fajara Barracks and Banjul.
“We were like jubilant because we knew that no force can stop us. I went for my machine gun because I was a gunner, I was carrying GPMG (General Purposes Machine Gun),” he says.
Mr. Senghore, who later joined the National Intelligent Agency and now with the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, accepted of being recruited into Jammeh’s heat squat (Junglers), but says they were trained to counter terrorism.
“The time I became a Jangler was after the attempted coup…we did this training for four months. It was like a counter terrorism. We were trained to maneuver, how to dislodge defensive positions,” he says before the truth commission.
Meanwhile, Senghore says a group of soldiers had torture the detainees at Mile 2 prisons led by a Gambia Army General, Alagie Martin in the aftermath of November 11 allege coup but denied him participating in that torture meted on the detainees.
They were beating by the group I went with, they were slapped, kicked, he says.
Forty-four witnesses have so far testified before the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparation Commission, which include 7 women, 2 government diplomats both men, and 35 men both former military officers, serving military officers, and civilians.
