By Lamin Cham & Mafugie Ceesay
One of the most adversely mentioned officials at the truth commission, Lamin Darboe, a former senior NIA special operations officer, yesterday incurred the wrath of even the ever mild-tempered chairman Dr Lamine Sise, who described him as not a good example for the youths. Darboe, under whose command some 115 people were allegedly detained at the NIA, most of them tortured, flatly denied participating in premeditated torture. He first consternated the commission when said beating and torture are different.
Lead counsel Essa Faal, who almost lost his cool at some point, told Darboe that the tragedy of employing poorly-educated people such as himself into senior positions of an important institution like the NIA is what led to the disaster the country found itself in.
Darboe proved a hard-nut to crack but in his mesmerizing grilling style, Faal was able to lay bare his attempt to dribble the commission.
”You came here with an intention to mislead the commission”, Faal put to the witness.
Darboe, whose testimony was one of the longest, said all the arrests his unit conducted were on the order of former president Jammeh. He told a scintillating story of how Jammeh ordered his former boss DG Yankuba Badjie to fish out several iron boxes supposedly containing cash from the airport where they arrived. The operation, he said, led to the arrest of a few people but when the boxes were eventually discovered, they were found to be containing only cement blocks much to the consternation of NIA DG Badjie, who had already told Jammeh that the boxes containing the money, had been found. The witness said the right box was eventually found but the contents were fake currencies. It was also revealed that Darboe and his special operations unit were so influential that they might have played a role in sacking of ministers. Despite his reputation, Mr Darboe said he had always exercised caution in his official duties knowing that a day like today would come when all come to light.
