West African regional bloc ECOWAS on Sunday approved the creation of a special tribunal to try crimes committed in Gambia during the military dictatorship.
The historic decision was announced at a summit of regional heads of state held in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja.
The tribunal will cover alleged crimes committed under military dictator Yahya Jammeh, whose rule from 1996 to 2017 was marked by arbitrary detentions, sexual abuse, and extrajudicial killings. Jammeh lost the presidential election in 2016 and went into exile in Equatorial Guinea a year later after initially refusing to step down.
Calls for justice for victims of the dictatorship have been growing for years in Gambia, a country surrounded by Senegal except for a small Atlantic coastline. In 2021, a truth commission concluded its hearings with strong recommendations, urging the government to try the perpetrators.
In May, Jammeh’s former interior minister was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a Swiss court for these crimes against humanity. In November, a German court convicted a Gambian, Bai Lowe, of murder and crimes against humanity for participating in the assassination of government critics in Gambia. The man was a driver for a military unit deployed against Jammeh’s opponents.
The Gambian Ministry of Justice said in a statement that the decision was a “historic development” that “marks a significant step forward for The Gambia, the region, and the international community.”