Former beauty queen testifies on Gambia ex-president Yahya Jammeh rape
Ex-President Yahya Jammeh of Gambia. A former Gambian beauty queen has accused him of raping her. FILE PHOTO | ISSOUF SANOGO | AFP
What you need to know:
- A former Gambian beauty queen accused former President Yahya Jammeh of raping her.
- Jammeh fled the country in January 2017 after losing presidential elections and initially refusing to step down.
- The TRRC was set up to review abuses under Jammeh.
Banjul
A Gambian former beauty queen on Thursday accused former President Yahya Jammeh of raping her punish her for rejecting his marriage proposal, in evidence to the country's truth and reconciliation commission.
"What he wanted to do was to teach me a lesson, what he wanted to do is manifest his ego," Fatou Jallow said.
"There were words like 'who do you think you are?', that he is the president and that he gets any woman that he wants," Jallow told Gambia's Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC).
FLED COUNTRY
Jammeh fled the country in January 2017 after losing presidential elections and initially refusing to step down.
He had come to power in a bloodless coup in July 1994 and was repeatedly re-elected in disputed circumstances until being defeated in December 2016 by the relatively unknown Adama Barrow.
After other West African states intervened, he fled into exile in the central African state of Equatorial Guinea.
The TRRC was set up to review abuses under Jammeh.
