Martin Kyere to testify in The Gambia massacre in a German Court 

Mr. Martin Kyere, a survivor of the unlawful killings of about 44 Ghanaians in The Gambia in 2005, is scheduled to appear before a German court this week.

He is to testify against Bai Lowe, one of the alleged perpetrators of the killings.

Lowe, who had left the Gambia to seek asylum in Germany was arrested in Hanover, Germany, in March 2021 under the international criminal law principle of universal jurisdiction and charged with murder, attempted murder, and crimes against humanity.

One of the charges relates to his alleged role in the murder of DeydaHydara, a Gambian journalist and founder of The Point newspaper.

Universal jurisdiction allows for the prosecution of a person for an international crime such as crimes against humanity in a foreign country regardless of where the crime was committed.

Kyere, who had jumped from the moving pick-up vehicle that was transporting the Ghanaians and other West African migrants to the spot where the migrants were summarily executed, will testify before the German court, presided over by Judge Ralf Günther, in Celle, a statement issued in Accra yesterday by The Jammeh2Justice Ghana Coalition,  a Coalition of Civil Society Organizations led by the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) and formed to advocate justice and reparations for the Ghanaian victims’ families and survivors of the Gambia massacre, has indicated.

Lowe, a member of the ‘Junglers’, a hit squad, some of whose members summarily executed the Ghanaians on the orders of former President Yahya Jammeh, denied the charges, adding he did not participate in the killings in his statement to the court read earlier  by his lawyer.

Lowe had told Freedom Radio in an interview on February 24, 2013 that he was the driver of the “Junglers’ who summarily executed the Ghanaians and other West African migrants.

The migrants were thrown into a well in Yunoor, near Casamance, on the border between The Gambia and Senegal.

Some of the bodies of the migrants were dismembered and put in plastic bags, he added.

In December 2021, The Gambia Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) found 13 members of the Junglers culpable for the killing of the Ghanaians and other West African migrants and recommended their prosecution along with former president Jammeh who allegedly gave the orders for the killings.

The Gambian government issued a White Paper in May 2022 accepting the TRRC recommendations but no prosecution of the alleged perpetrators has begun in The Gambia.

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