Gambian Supreme Court commutes minister’s death sentence

The Gambian Supreme Court has commuted the death sentence of a minister convicted of killing his colleague to life in prison.

The minister was one of the few convicted for crimes committed during the 22-year rule of ex-dictator Yahya Jammeh.

The case has been closely watched in the tiny West African nation as a rare example of accountability for Jammeh-era crimes and also as a test case for a years-long moratorium on capital punishment.

The ruling announced on Tuesday upheld the verdict against Yankuba Touray for the murder in 1995 of the country’s ex-finance minister, Ousman Koro Ceesay.

But judges ruled Touray would be spared hanging and instead serve out a life term in a prison outside the capital, Banjul.

A Gambian commission in 2021 recommended prosecutions for the killings, torture, and other abuses under Jammeh, who is in exile in Equatorial Guinea after he fled the country following his defeat in the 2016 election by President Adama Barrow.

Gambia has observed a moratorium on capital punishment since 2018. Though courts have handed down several death sentences for crimes committed under Jammeh, who ruled the West African country for 22 years after seizing power in a 1994 coup, none have been carried out.

The sentences have, however, ignited debate in Gambia over the use of capital punishment.

Gambia’s former spy chief and four other ex-intelligence officials were sentenced to death in 2022 for the 2016 killing of activist and Jammeh critic Solo Sandeng.

A handful of other cases around the world have seen convictions of Jammeh-era officials.

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