Former Junglers Leader Appears in Gambian Military Desertion Trial

Former Junglers leader Sanna Manjang has appeared before a military court in Banjul, where he is facing charges of desertion from The Gambia’s armed forces.

The charge alleges that Manjang was absent for a continuous period of nine years with the intention of deserting. He is accused of leaving the armed forces in 2017, after the end of Yahya Jammeh’s 20-year rule.

Manjang was arrested in Senegal last November and repatriated to The Gambia a month later, according to the source report.

Earlier murder case dropped

The military proceedings follow the dropping of a separate murder case against Manjang in July. He had previously faced four counts of murder, including allegations connected to the 2004 killing of AFP journalist Deyda Hydara.

He was also accused of killing three other men, including one whom the charges alleged he personally decapitated. The allegations were not established as facts in the case, and the murder charges were dropped as The Gambia struggled to summon witnesses.

Manjang is separately charged with assaulting two other men in an ongoing trial. The source report does not provide further details about that proceeding.

Junglers linked to Jammeh-era abuses

The Junglers, the Gambian paramilitary unit formerly headed by Manjang, operated independently from the Gambian army, according to the report. The United Nations has long accused the group of extrajudicial killings and torture.

Jammeh lost power in 2016 to Adama Barrow and was forced into exile. After his departure, The Gambia established the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission to investigate alleged crimes committed during his rule.

The commission found that between 240 and 250 people were killed by the state during Jammeh’s rule. It also reported evidence of widespread extrajudicial killings, torture, kidnappings, witch hunts and other abuses.

Several of Jammeh’s accomplices, including members of the Junglers, have been detained and sentenced abroad in Germany, Switzerland and the United States.