GAMBIA: FORMER ARMY CHIEF AND SIX OTHERS DEATH SENTENCES COMMUTED TO LIFE

November 12, 2014: A seven-member panel of judges of the Gambia Supreme Court presided over by the Chief Justice overturned the death sentence imposed on the former Chief of Defence Staff of the Gambia Armed Forces (GAF), Lt. General Lang Tombong Tamba and six of his co-defendants to life imprisonment.
General Tamba; former director of operations and training at GAF, Brigadier General Omar Bun Mbye, former NIA director, Lamin Bo Badjie, former deputy Inspector General of Police, Modou Gaye, former deputy Gambian ambassador to Guinea Bissau, Gibril Ngorr Secka, former commander of Kanilai military camp, Lt. Col. Kawsu Camara, and Abdoulie Joof, a businessman, were convicted by the High Court in Banjul on conspiracy and treason on 15 July 2010 and sentenced to death. Delivering his ruling on the reviewed motion, Chief Justice Eli Nawaz Chowhan, a Pakistani national and Chief Justice of the Gambia, said the panel has agreed for the death sentence to be substituted with life imprisonment. (Sources: APA, 13/11/2014)