Deyda Hydara, Former Editor Point Newspaper
By: D.A. Jawo
Today is the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Deyda Hydara, and his family, friends, former colleagues and indeed the whole country are still waiting for justice.
We can recall that on the morning of 16 December 2004, Gambians were awoken to the news of the assassination of the veteran journalist and Managing Editor of The Point newspaper by unknown assailants. �While at the time everyone suspected that the regime of ex-President Yahya Jammeh had a hand in the assassination, hardly anyone knew why a harmless person like Deyda could be the target of such a cold-blooded murder. However, the queer behavior and comportment of ex-President Jammeh and some senior members of his regime with regards to the case, heightened suspicions that the regime had something to do with it. Even the very attitude of the regime towards the case was quite bizarre. Not only was the family never invited to the postmortem examination, but the autopsy report was also never made available to them, even when they requested for it. Up to this very day, neither the family nor the Gambia Press Union (GPU) and all the other interested parties, knew what became of the autopsy report or even the bullets that were removed from his body. �Therefore, something was always definitely quite fishy with regard to the attitude of the Jammeh regime towards Deyda’s assassination. All calls by the Gambia Press Union and other concerned groups for a thorough investigation of the case were ignored and the regime continued to demonstrate its complete indifference to the matter. In fact every time President Jammeh commented on it, he made some ambiguous remarks which tended to confuse rather than clarify his government’s stand point on the issue. �Therefore, the confessions at the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) by some members of ex-President Jammeh’s killer squad, the Junglers, that they participated in his assassination, did not come as a big surprise to many people. It was merely a confirmation to what many had always suspected. Even the claim that they were acting on the orders of ex-President Jammeh, was not a surprise. What was however not quite obvious was the reason why anyone would target Deyda for elimination. Anyone who intimately knew him, must have known that he was an advocate for peace and social cohesion. Even in his journalism work, Deyda was always calling for peaceful co-existence among peoples of all races and creeds. Therefore, it is hard to see how ex-President Jammeh or anyone else would want to get him eliminated.�However, what is still of most concern to many people is why, almost three years since the release of the TRRC report, we are still waiting to see the government take action against those accused of his killing, apart the case against Bai Lowe, accused of being driver of the assassins, and who was prosecuted in Germany. �Therefore, 20 years after the brutal killing of an innocent Gambian, his murderers are still freely walking in the streets as if no one cares for Justice for Deyda’s family and friends.