Remanded former “Jungler” death squad operative Sanna Manjang is expected to appear before a High Court judge on Monday, December 8, following his brief and procedural appearance in a lower court last week.
Judicial sources have confirmed to The Alkamba Times that Manjang will confront an updated indictment, sharpening the focus on his alleged orchestration of some of the most notorious extrajudicial killings under ex-President Yahya Jammeh’s 22-year reign of terror.
Manjang, a lieutenant Colonel in the infamous Junglers – Jammeh’s elite paramilitary hit squad notorious for enforced disappearances, torture, and assassinations – was extradited from Senegal on December 2 after eight years on the run. His arrest in the Casamance region, stemming from a joint Senegalese-Gambian operation, marked a breakthrough in transitional justice efforts. Barely 24 hours later, on December 3, he was hustled into Kanifing Magistrates’ Court under a phalanx of heavily armed guards, his light blue Haftan a stark contrast to the grim charges awaiting him.
Prosecutors wasted no time. They unveiled a three-count murder indictment under Section 187 of the Criminal Code, accusing Manjang of malice aforethought in the 2005 drive-by shooting of celebrated journalist Deyda Hydara. This slaying silenced one of Gambia’s boldest voices against corruption and authoritarianism. The charges extended to the 2006 executions of Ndongo Mboob and Haruna Jammeh, both gunned down in what TRRC testimonies described as cold-blooded hits ordered from the top.
Principal Magistrate Isatou Sallah-M’bai swiftly acknowledged the court’s jurisdictional limits on capital offenses, granting the prosecution’s bid under Section 72 of the Criminal Procedure Code to shunt the case to the Special Criminal Division of the High Court in Banjul.
Citing Legal Notice No. 3 of 2009, she remanded Manjang to Mile 2 Central Prison’s maximum-security wing, denying bail amid fears of flight risk and public safety concerns. No plea was entered during the 20-minute hearing, which drew a tense crowd of victims’ families, rights activists, and journalists.
Sources close to the judiciary whisper of an “updated indictment,” potentially incorporating fresh evidence from the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) – including survivor accounts and ballistic matches linking Manjang to the crime scenes. This could encompass additional counts of conspiracy or accessory to murder, broadening the net to ensnare the Junglers’ command chain. “This isn’t just about one man; it’s about dismantling the impunity that scarred a nation,” said Baba Hydara, son of the slain journalist and a vocal advocate for Victims of Human Rights Violations.
The case resonates deeply in a country still healing from Jammeh’s legacy. The TRRC, which wrapped up in 2021, implicated Manjang in over a dozen atrocities, from the torture of dissidents to the 2004 “Miles 2 Nine” massacre. His prosecution aligns with President Adama Barrow’s pledges to operationalize a special hybrid court, possibly in partnership with the international community, to try Jammeh-era fugitives. Yet challenges loom: witnesses’ safety, evidentiary gaps due to fading memories, and the specter of Jammeh himself, holed up in Equatorial Guinea and resisting extradition.
