The former leader of an elite Gambian paramilitary unit linked to state-sponsored abuses appeared before a military tribunal in Banjul to answer formal charges of desertion. Lieutenant Colonel Sanna Manjang, who commanded the notorious "Junglers" unit under former President Yahya Jammeh, stood before judges on Monday following his extradition from neighboring Senegal. The proceedings represent a renewed effort by the government to hold figures from the previous political era legally accountable.
Military prosecutors charged the former officer with deserting his post for nine consecutive years.
State attorneys confirmed that Manjang fled the country in 2017 immediately after Jammeh was ousted from power, ending two decades of authoritarian rule. Security services in Senegal arrested Manjang last November, facilitating his transfer back to Gambian custody a month later. The United Nations has repeatedly documented that the Junglers operated outside the conventional command chain of the Gambian military, orchestrating targeted disappearances, torture, and extrajudicial executions.
Jammeh went into foreign exile in early 2017 after conceding electoral defeat to current President Adama Barrow.
Following the political transition, the state established the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission, which concluded that state actors executed between 240 and 250 individuals under Jammeh`s direction. Several members of the regime and its paramilitary squads have subsequently faced trial and sentencing in Germany, Switzerland, and the United States under universal jurisdiction.
State prosecutors previously charged Manjang with four counts of murder, including the 2004 assassination of prominent AFP correspondent Deyda Hydara. Those indictments were formally dismissed in July after judicial authorities failed to secure appearances from key witnesses, some of whom were alleged former squad members.
Beyond the Hydara killing, investigators had accused Manjang of executing three other men, including carrying out a personal decapitation. Following the collapse of the primary murder indictment, authorities opened a separate criminal proceeding charging the former commander with the violent physical assault of two men, a trial that remains actively underway before the civil courts.
