The discreet detention center is not known to even residents in the area. Babucarr Bah, the TRRC witness who confessed to torturing Omar Jallow with Almamo Manneh was detained the compound.
The Truth Commission investigating the human rights violations of the former Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh has visited a secret detention in Old Jeshwang near the prison. The place is a compound of two buildings with one being used as a residence and another a safe house.
The center was a safe house of National Intelligence Agency (NIA) that still has on its walls relics of the institution’s human right abuses.
The Commission’s nine commissioners and its investigation team and staff have embedded close to a dozen journalists in the Tuesday visit which took them to Fajara Barracks and Old Jeshwang Prison.
This is the third site visit by the Commission following an inspection of Mile 2 prison and the NIA headquarters.
Several witnesses before the Truth Commission detained and jailed at these sites have talked about widespread torture by state operatives while in their custody. The visit by the Commission is meant to see the places first hand.
The first began at Fajara Barracks where an unspecified number of soldiers were executed on November 11, 1994. These soldiers include Lt. Abdoulie Faal and Lt. Basiru Barrow.
The soldiers were reportedly killed at a camp’s football field. The places visited by the Commission were the Ante room, the Cook House and the Hanger.
These were places adversely mentioned by witnesses before the Commission as key places where the atrocities happened.
At the Jeshwang prison, the Commission visited the cells, particularly the Banba Dinka that is there too.
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