By: Adama Makasuba
Police officers continue testifying before Truth Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) on former President Yahya Jammeh’ so-called 2009 witch- hunt which targeted the poor, elderly farmers who were often pressurized to confess to murders by sorcery by hiring a band of witch doctors to raid communities for witches.
Ken Mendy, a policeman on Monday detailed how the so-called witch doctors forced senior police officers at the police headquarters in Banjul to pledge their allegiance to former president Yahya Jammeh by standing over sacrificial pit of a cock under a palm tree.
“These witch hunters were having a cock and the cock was slaughtered under a palm tree and all the people paraded were taken to this palm tree to swear their allegiance to the president and the IGP was the one leading this process.
“To my knowledge when they do it at that particular moment it was not done on their will, maybe it was a sacrifice because to kill a cock at the police headquarters and asking the police officers to swear their allegiance is not part of our rule,” Mendy told the TRRC.
“The IGP called me into his office and when I arrived in I found four to five men in the traditional trouser, some were not in shirt and they were having round mirrors, horns and calabash. The moment I entered in to IGP’s office one of them pointed the mirror at me and asked me to come towards him and he was moving back as I was moving towards him and they said they didn’t found anything from and they told the IGP that I am a good person.”
“I heard that the alleged witches and wizards were taken to a place in Manjai and bath and giving something to drink,” he added.
