Monitored By: Nyima Sillah
Former editor-in-chief of the defunct The Independent newspaper Musa Saidykan on Thursday testified that he was “brutally maltreated” by the NIA following his arrest and detention at the NIA.
Testifying in the ongoing trial of former interior minister Ousman Sonko over crimes against humanity, Saidykhan told the court that he was arrested in his FajiKunda home on 27 March 2006, by a group of armed men and transferred to the Police Intervention Unit HQin Kanifing in the evening before he was transported to the NIA HQ in Banjul at night.
“I was put in a small cell with some alleged coup plotters before being taken to the NIA. When I was taken to the NIA, I was severely beaten several times and forced to be naked. I was stripped and they applied electrical shock all over my body, including my private part,” he explained to the court.
He narrated that because of those severe beatings, he lost sight in his right eye, explaining that when they came for him for the second time, he was again beaten severely. Saidykhan said his hand was broken twiceand his mouth was sliced with a knife. He testified that his torturers had told him that the purpose of such maltreatment was that he was stubborn and he affected the government by his hands and mouth.
The former editor told the court that on 20 March 2006, he and Madi M.K Ceesay; former general manager cum President of the Gambia Press Union were taken before the panel where he [Saidykan] could see Ousman Sonko and others, including Lang Tombong Tamba and some other senior government security officers.
Saidykhan said he had to flee the country after hisrelease because he was warned by Ousman Sonko that whatever happened at the NIA must be kept under the carpet.
He also told the court that a media colleague, an NIA officer, and a family member advised him to leave the country because it was the former South African President Thabo Mbeki, who intervened in his first and second arrests for him to be released.
He stated one of those who advised him to leave the country had informed him that there was a plan to execute him if Mbeki relinquished AU chairmanship.
“This was how I was smuggled out of the country with my six-month pregnant wife to Senegal before I could finally get into America,” editor Saidykhan stated.