Detained opposition leader charged with murder

Gambian police have charged opposition United Democratic Party (UDP) leader Ousainou Darboe and 24 of his supporters with the suspected murder of a rival party faithful who died in fighting between the two groups at the weekend, news reports and other sources said on Wednesday.

‘The Daily Observer’, a Banjul newspaper, reported that lead detective Jai Sowe had completed preliminary investigations into the the fighting between supporters of the ruling Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC) and the UDP. Darboe, who was arrested on Sunday, is being held in the Basse Police Station, some 300 km east of the capital, Banjul, where he had sought refuge.

Both parties blame each other for the fighting in which APRC supporter Alieu Njie died on Saturday about two kilometres from Chamoi, near Basse. An official in the APRC party secretariat in Banjul, who declined to reveal his identity, told IRIN that between 100 and 150 UDP supporters first attacked their rivals on Friday near Numuyel, in the Upper River Division.

“They weren’t provoked,” the APRC official said.

However, ‘The Point’ newspaper quoted UDP national propaganda secretary Lamin Waa Juwara as saying, “The UDP delegation was ambushed by former members of the dissolved July 22 Movement under the command of Momodou Suma Jobe, the assistant commissioner of Upper River Division.”

The government of President Yahya Jammeh disbanded the July 22 Movement because it had started to stray beyond APRC party bounds.

The UDP defendants, who today appeared before the magistrate in Basse, were on an country-wide “meet the people” tour ahead of municipal elections due in November. Violence has not been a hallmark of Gambia’s political culture since independence from Britain in 1965.