The 46-year-old suspect, Bai Lowe, who was arrested in Hanover in March 2021, appeared before the court in Celle (Lower Saxony) for crimes against humanity, murders and attempted murders between 2003 and 2006.

He was on those dates the driver of an armed forces unit responsible for assassinating critics of the regime of Yahya Jammeh, a dictator who remained in power in Banjul for 22 years.

This unit was used, "among other things, to carry out illegal assassination orders. The objective was to intimidate the Gambian population and suppress the opposition", describes the German federal prosecutor's office.

This trial is "the first to prosecute human rights violations committed in Gambia under the Jammeh era on the basis of universal jurisdiction", underlines the NGO Human Rights Watch.

"Liquidation"

The accused participated "in three liquidation orders in total", say the prosecutors.

Among these crimes, the assassination by bullets on December 16, 2004 of the Gambian journalist Deyda Hydara, correspondent for AFP.

Bai Lowe allegedly drove the journalist's killers away, according to the indictment.

Aged 58, father of four, co-founder of the private newspaper The Point, Deyda Hydara was also the Gambia correspondent for the NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

He was considered the dean of journalists in this small English-speaking country in West Africa.

"We will not stand idly by: we will continue to fight," assures this 45-year-old man who has planned to attend the opening of the trial.

According to investigations carried out by RSF, Deyda Hydara had been spied on by the Gambian intelligence services just before his death.

In his newspaper The Point, he notably had a widely read section, "Good morning Mr President" in which he spoke about Gambian politics.

The accused is also suspected of having been an accomplice in the assassination attempt, in December 2003, of a well-known lawyer in Banjul, Ousman Sillah, a critic of President Jammeh.

This trial will "know why, who and how they tried to kill my father," said Amie Sillah, his daughter, at a press conference.

The German prosecution still suspects Bai Lowe of being involved in the death near Banjul airport in 2006 of Dawda Nyassi, considered an opponent of the former Gambian president.

"Truth" and "Reconciliation"

German justice summons the accused in the name of the principle of "universal jurisdiction" which allows certain crimes to be tried in Germany regardless of where in the world they were committed.

Came to power by a putsch in July 1994, Yahya Jammeh was elected in 1996 and re-elected without interruption until his defeat in December 2016 against opponent Adama Barrow.

Since 2017, he has been in exile in Equatorial Guinea.

Human rights defenders have accused his regime of systematic torture, extrajudicial executions, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances and rape.

In July 2019, before the Gambian "Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations" Commission (TRRC), three former members of the "Junglers" ("bush"), these death squads of Yahya Jammeh, had admitted to having assassinated Deyda Hydara, more than 50 West African migrants stranded on a beach, as well as former traveling companions of Mr. Jammeh, suspected of wanting to overthrow him.

Ayesha Hamun Jammeh, in Banjul on April 19, 2022, poses with a "No to impunity" sign, demanding justice for her father and aunt, allegedly killed by the regime of ex-president Yahya Jammeh in The Gambia MUHAMADOU BITTAYE AFP /Archives

In addition to Bai Lowe, two other alleged actors in the abuses attributed to the former Gambian regime are currently detained abroad.

Ousman Sonko, former Minister of the Interior, has been under investigation in Switzerland since 2017 for "crimes against humanity" and a former "bush worker", Michael Sang Correa, was charged in 2020 in the States -United.

His trial could begin in early 2023.

The lawsuits against them "are a big step in the quest for truth and justice", welcomed Babaka Tracy Mputu of the human rights NGO TRIAL International.

© 2022 AFP