Bai Lowe upon his arrival at the court in Celle, Germany, on April 25, 2022. RONNY HARTMANN / AFP
“Junglers”, “Black-Black” or “Patrol Team”… Three crests for one and the same unit, a death squad that exclusively follows the orders of the Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh (1994-2017). Baboucar “Bai” Lowe, now 46, was part of this machine to destroy opponents, human rights activists and journalists. He is the first jungler to be tried for crimes against humanity. His trial opened on Monday April 25 in Celle, Lower Saxony (Germany) as the prospects of Yahya Jammeh being held responsible for his crimes are dwindling.
For a long time, the existence of the “black-blacks”, so named after the color of the uniforms they wore for their base works, remained secret. Established in 2000, this illegal unit of about forty men – whose first members were trained to kill by an Italian mafioso, Francisco Caso, who came to The Gambia as a tourist – was stationed in two bases: one in Banjul, the capital, the other in Kanilaï, the stronghold of Yahya Jammeh. All were from the State Guards Unit (the Presidential Guard).
Baboucar “Bai” Lowe was a devoted servant of the former dictator for a long time before finding refuge in Germany
“Baboucar “Bai” Lowe, a Warrant Officer 2nd Class, was the first person to take Gambier under this veil of secrecy,” we can read on the specialized international justice website, Justiceinfo.net. After being a zealous servant of the dictator since 1997, this soldier, who was completing a command course in Libya, found refuge in Germany. From there, in 2013 he gave an interview to Freedom Radio, a Gambian opposition media outlet based in the United States, in which he described the workings of his former unit. He accuses Yahya Jammeh of ordering numerous crimes and incriminates regime officials, including then Interior Minister Ousman Sonko, who has been in custody in Switzerland since 2017.
Ruthlessly, Baboucar “Bai” Lowe doesn’t hide his own murderous exploits in this interview. “He blames himself, maybe because he thought it would serve his asylum application,” says Reed Brody, an American lawyer who deals with victims of the Gambian regime and former legal adviser to the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW). However, the arrest of the former “jungler” will have to wait until March 2021.
“Third Knife”
The German judiciary woke up after the work of the Truth, Reconciliation and Restitution Commission (TRRC), set up after the dictator’s fall and exile in 2017. Crimes committed during the dictatorship are overwhelming: assassinations, torture, enforced disappearances , rapes, castrations, arbitrary arrests, witch hunts, even the AIDS treatment falsified by the receivership. Between 240 and 250 people have died at the hands of the state and its agents, according to TRRC, which recommends that Yahya Jammeh (along with 69 others) be prosecuted for crimes committed “directly and indirectly” while he was in power.
You still have 52.35% of this article to read. The following is for subscribers only.