The first trial ever of one of Yahya Jammeh's "Junglers" (hit squad members) began not in a Gambian courtroom or an international tribunal but in a regional court in the sleepy German town of Celle.
The defendant Bai L, 46, entered the courtroom in a black-hooded winter parka holding a folded green cardboard sheet in front of his face until the cameras lined up to take his picture had departed. He then sat forward facing the five judges, apparently never turning to look at Baba Hydara sitting three meters to his right, the joint plaintiff in the prosecution and the son of the outspoken newspaper editor Deyda Hydara, in whose murder Bai is accused of taking part.
During the first week of the trial against Bai L. in Celle (April 25 and 26, 2022), Mr. Dettmer, a police investigator in charge of the case, described how the authorities were first tipped off about Bai L. case in 2014, when the FBI who had heard him as a witness in an investigation of their own drew the attention of the German Federal Criminal Police Office to him.
In 2017, they were once again alerted, this time by the Swiss authorities who were building a case against Jammeh's former interior minister Ousman Sonko, and who had translated Bai L.'s 2013 two interviews with Pa Nderry Mbai from the Freedom Radio and with Fatu Camara from the Fatu Network.
During those interviews, Bai L. described his participation in the crimes he is currently being tried for, as well as in the killing of the 59 West African migrants.
The police then had a look at Bai L.'s 2013 application for asylum in Germany in which he mentioned criminal activities in which he was involved. It was after reading all the interviews that the police upgraded its "observation" of Bai L. to a formal "investigation" against him, and the case began in earnest.
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The investigator said that he found more evidence against Bai L. using the testimonies presented at the TRRC hearings, using the Digests published by ANEKED and The Point Newspaper as a guide to the hearings.
The investigators also found evidence through the search of Bai L.'s house, that allowed for accessing his phone, and tens of thousands of photos, videos and messages, which showed that he was in contact with other Junglers.
The search of Bai L.'s phone also revealed that he was considering to testify at the TRRC in 2019 and 2021, as he was in direct contact with an officer from the TRRC. Indeed, a filled in witness form was found in his phone.
The investigation also revealed that Bai L. last visited The Gambia in January 2021.
The trial monitoring project is carried out in cooperation with Human Rights Watch, TRIAL International, the International Commission of Jurists. Trial notes and other information are provided by students of the Georg-August-University of Göttingen, supervised and coordinated by Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Kai Ambos and his team at the Department of Foreign and International Criminal Law, as well as the Göttingen chapter of the European Law Students' Association (ELSA).
