Gambia ex-president accused of ordering murder of two US traders

BANJUL, Gambia: Former members of a Gambian death squad known as the Junglers on Thursday accused ex-president Yahya Jammeh of ordering the murder of two US citizens in 2013, having already confessed to the killing of a well known journalist.

Since Monday, Gambians have been gripped by live coverage of three ex-Junglers -- Malick Jatta, Omar Jallow and Amadou Badjie -- before the West African country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. On the last day of hearings before the commission adjourns until August 5, Badjie, a member of Jammeh´s elite hit squad, said the head of state had ordered in June 2013 that two US-Gambian businenessmen, Alhaji Ceesay and Ebrima Jobe, who he suspected were planning a coup, should be "chopped into pieces". The two men were arrested and taken to the president's residence in the village of Kanilai, Badjie said.

There they were driven deep into the grounds where they were suffocated, beheaded and buried, Badjie added.

"These two people were suffocated to death and their heads chop off. We buried these corpses in one grave," he said.

"Our team was a hit squad for Yahya Jammeh. We had blind loyalty for Yahya Jammeh," he added.

Earlier, the witnesses said they took part in strangling to death Haruna Jammeh, Jammeh's cousin, as well as the torture of outspoken cleric Imam Baba Leigh and the 2012 execution of nine prison inmates.