By Kaddy Jawo
Malick Mboob, former journalist at the Daily Observer Newspaper and now Communication Officer at the Guaranteed Trust Bank, on Monday, told the Commission at the TRRC that his encounter with the ‘junglers’ at the then National Intelligence Agency (NIA) was a horrific experience as the memories still haunt him thirteen years later.
Mboob said after his arrest by the regime of Yahya Jammeh, he was taken to the NIA in Banjul where Tumbul Tamba instructed him to change his statement he gave to his interrogators but which he (Mboob) refused to change. He alleged that Tumbul, Musa Jammeh, and some of their colleagues at the NIA threatened him that if he did not change his statement, they will use the AK47 rifles they were holding to kill him with or even bury him alive.
“I saw someone holding a spade, but he did not dig a hole. But they started to beat me with sticks, military boots and they beat me mercilessly for some minutes; and I was crying for help and bleeding profusely,” recalls Mboob
He said more than ten men believed to be members of the ‘Junglers’ continued beating him with the exception Musa Jammeh who was gave orders on where and how to beat him.
Mboob said around 3AM in the morning, Tumbul Tamba received a called and walked out of the room and then Ismaila Jammeh whisper to him that the call was from Yahya Jammeh. Mboob said that Ismaila advised him to pretend to be dead the next time the ‘jungulars’ come to beat him, again.
He said when the ‘junglers’ came back to beat him, he stopped moving and crying pretended to be dead as Ismaila instructed him. After he did that, he said, he overheard the head of the ‘junglers’ — Tumbul — said “if you beat him until he died I am going to arrest all of you because I did not give you orders to kill him.”
Mboob said his “dead pretense” saved his life. He said after they stopped beating him, Tumbul ordered Ismaila to return him to the cell. When they were inside the cell, he said, Ismaila told him “you see Tumbul was worried that you were not breathing and that really saved you.” Mboob told the commissioners that he has visible scars all over his body thirteen years removed from the encounter.