New insight paints late Almamo Manneh as a sadistic soldier who killed with glee and bragged over his charms, if soldier Lamin Sillah’s narration is anything to go by.
Almamo, a sergeant under the AFPC leadership was killed in the year 2000 on suspicion of plotting to overthrow Jammeh’s leadership.
Agonies of his demise poured onto the surface with his wife Binta Jamba’s recent testimony before Gambia’s truth commission, during which she was raped, purportedly sixty times by erstwhile Interior minister Ousman Sonko.
Killed in an ambush at around Bone Road in the wee hours of a certain night -an execution carried out by soldiers under Ousman Sonko’s command -details of how Manneh lived under the regime is unraveling.
Lamin Sillah’s ongoing narration at the TRRC paints the former sergeant as a thug feared for his supposed supernatural powers and constant bragging.
“You will defecate bullets,” is the comment he is known most for uttering, a threat, Lamin said was aimed at fending off whoever dares to stand his way.
Teeing off today’s TRRC session under intense wrangling with counsel Essa Faal, Sillah part of a presidential convoy but without Jammeh on this occasion, claim Almamo killed a Nigerian civilian with impunity at Westfield.
Disturbed by the growing notoriety the AFPRC government was courting on the heels of previous killings and right violations, then army commander Baboucar Jatta, felt the need to correct that by ensuring Almamo’s arrest.
A batch of military police personnel, detailed to apprehend, were sent to come after Almamo at the presidential palace for questioning.
A dangerous enterprise as this sounded at the time, according Sillah, who was at the scene, Almamo pulled out a gun telling the arresting team they will “defecate bullets”.
“He willfully shot that Nigerian at Westfield and killed him. Then army commander Baboucar Jatta even ordered the military police for the arrest of Almamo but Almamo said any military police who comes after him “he will defecate bullets”,” the commission heard.
Sillah continued: “Everyone feared Almamo. He used to have a gun on him all times and beats quite easily. He bragged about his charms. He threatened everyone with “defecating bullets”. He once sent me to his village but warned me strictly not to even give lift to his parents on the way if I saw them. On our way coming his wife suggested I give a lift to her relatives which I did. But Almamo warned me never to repeat that again.”
Hearing continues.
