BANJUL, The Gambia — The Gambia will use money from the sale of former ruler Yahya Jammeh’s seized mansion in the United States to pay victims of his more than two decades in power, BBC News reported.
The country’s Reparations Commission said it had received $2,573,414.10 from the sale of the property in Maryland. The United States won the right to sell the house in 2022, on the grounds that it had been bought with “criminal proceeds and misappropriated Gambian public funds.”
The commission said it was committed to managing the money responsibly and transparently, “with due regard to the rights and needs of victims and survivors.”
Jammeh seized power in a 1994 coup. His rule was marked by accusations of forced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, rape and torture, and a commission of inquiry found that abuses led to the deaths of “240-250 Gambians and non-Gambians at the hands of the state or its agents,” BBC News reported.
He lost the 2016 election to Adama Barrow, at first accepted defeat and then rejected the result. He stepped down in 2017 under heavy regional and international pressure, after troops from several West African countries, including Senegal, were deployed to The Gambia, and went into exile in Equatorial Guinea.
A national commission later found that Jammeh had 281 properties in The Gambia, as well as the one in the United States and another in Morocco, and controlled more than 100 bank accounts. It concluded he had misappropriated more than $300 million.
Sources: BBC News
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