By Lamin Cham
Lamin Cham one of the country’s most experienced police investigators, working at the Major Crime Unit yesterday faced the TRRC to answer questions dealing with the method used to investigate several incidents by panels that included him.
These include the 2006 attempted coup, the Freedom Newspaper saga, the alleged Lang Tombong coup of 2009, missing journalist Ebrima ‘Chief’ Manneh and the massacred Ghanaian migrants case among others.
Cham was tasked by lead counsel Essa Faal to explain the methods his panels used and to contrast these with international standard of investigations.
Mr Cham recounted the 2006 treason investigations admitting there have been abuses that were known to all panel members even though the actual torturing of suspects did not generally happen in front of panel members. “But it was known by panelists that the detainees were tortured. And it is true also that this fact was known to the three most influential people controlling proceedings CDS Lang Tombong Tamba, IGP Ousman Sonko and NIA DG Harry Sambou,” Mr Cham said. He recalled raising concerns about the tortures to his senior, Ebrima Chongan who warned him to watch his steps because the matter before them was treason and he could be easily linked to it. “We just could not do anything to stop it. I was in fact most of the time taking statements in between interrogations of different suspects,” he said. He agreed with the lead counsel that the methods used in their interrogations of the suspects fell short international standards but flatly denied that the statement were fabricated. He said he learned from NIA deputy DG Momodou Hydara that former President Jammeh was interested in parading the coup suspects on TV purportedly to apologise to the nation. “Again the panel raised concern about this but those in charge of the panel invited GRTS to parade the suspects,” Mr Cham said.
Police boycott panel
The witness further disclosed that when the panel was reconvened to deal with the Freedom Newspaper saga, the tortures continued but this time he and his colleagues from the police withdrew from the panel in protest.” When I saw the condition of one of the journalists detained, my namesake Lamin Cham, whom I know very well, I said this is too much and the rest of us from the police left the panel,” Cham said.
Grilled by lead counsel Faal why they did not take similar stand against torture with the previous panel, Cham said the two were different. “The other was treason and that was a lot different,” he noted.
The witness proceeded to talk about the case of the Ghanaian migrants. He said the men were transported from Barra and taken to the navy on suspicion that they were mercenaries. “But nothing impressed me during the investigation suggesting that they were mercenaries. Later it became known that they were murdered. About nine bodies were received from Ghana Town in Brufut and taken to the RVH. They were later buried but at some point they were exhumed and transported to Ghana,” the witness said.
He burst into tears when recounting how some of the people detained in connection with the case including one Lamin Tunkara who were taken away to be killed.
