Breaking News: Yahya Jammeh Hires Americans to Train Batch of Potential Assassins?

BY EBRIMA G. SANKAREH, Editor-In-Chief

Yahya Jammeh threatening to bury Gambians six feet deep

Unimpeachable sources from The Gambia’s State House reveal that a top-notch American security professional with years of international security expertise has sealed a deal with the autocratic regime of President Yahya Jammeh, to train a cadre of presidential guards exclusively from Jammeh’s Jola ethnic group who will henceforth, be tasked with targeted assassinations of political enemies, dissident journalists and economic saboteurs both in and out of the mini-West African state.

According to a diplomatic memo in the custody of The Gambia Echo that was prepared, singed and dispatched to President Jammeh on May 22, 2008 by Lamin Sabi Sanyang, the most powerful Financial Attaché in Washington DC, one Mr. Jared Grant Weight, a US citizen born 1956 and resident of Springville, Utah was issued a Gambian diplomatic visa marked “D3” to travel to The Gambia at state expense for purely security reasons. According to the Sanyang memo, Mr. Jared Grant Weight identified as a security consultant with Key Group Security Services of Utah, was issued a one-year multiple entry diplomatic visa that expires on May 22, 2009. In a section captioned “Reference”, Sanyang’s diplomatic memo says of Jared Grant Weight’s Gambian mission “response to request for advance Executive Protection training; attention; Lamin Sanyang.”  Under a line captioned “Reference address in The Gambia” the memo states: “Lamin Sabi Sanyang, office of The President, Banjul, The Gambia.” 

Lamin Sabi Sanyang, Financial Attache' Washington, DC

Says Waato Seeta; the hiring of the American security expert recruited by Sanyang punctuates Yahya Jammeh’s heightened interest in eliminating enemies, real or imagined, and he is prepared to spend his last dollar to hire the most sophisticated operators in the field. Reveals Waato, Mr. Weight is the lead consultant but many more will follow to train as many assassins in readiness for the next presidential election in 2011. In the coming year, several intelligence attachés would be recalled only to be replaced by a new cadre of lethal killers masquerading as diplomats,” reveals Waato Seeta.

According to Waato Seeta and as evident in the Sanyang diplomatic memo, Mr. Weight was issued a diplomatic visa but entered The Gambia as a businessman; an illegal diplomatic cover-up by Lamin Sanyang, which really begs the question, how come a Financial Attaché issues visas? Says Waato, “while the US Department of Homeland Security saw Weight travel to The Gambia as a potential investor, and the Gambian Immigration processed him as a diplomat, he was in actuality, in the country to confer with President Jammeh on the dictator’s grandest dream to allegedly eliminate political enemies.” The mere fact that Weight holds an ordinary American passport, it was utterly criminal to issue him a diplomatic visa argues Waato Seeta but in Yahya Jammeh’s government, everything goes.”

Following our receipt of the Sanyang memo from State House, The Gambia Echo contacted some diplomatic experts to shed more light on this case. According to a highbrow diplomat at the United Nations in New York who spoke to the Echo on conditions of anonymity, “by issuing a diplomatic visa to a person, that gives him immunity in the country of arrival and is accorded exclusive diplomatic privileges.” She elucidates, “it is a flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention to issue a diplomatic visa to a person with an ordinary passport. Moreover, according to diplomatic norm, every diplomatic passport should bear the title ‘Government Official’ except where the bearer is of direct lineage with the principal of the issuing state, e.g. President Jammeh’s family.”

According to our State House operative Kissy Kissy Mansa, President Jammeh was visibly jittery following the events of March 23, 2006 after one of his lead assassins; Sergeant Manlafi Corr was allegedly involved in the ploy to seize power despite the fact that Sgt. Corr headed the second group of killers known to most Gambians as the “janglers. “Corr’s alleged involvement in the March 2006 abortive coup” reveals Kissy, “dramatically changed the dynamics within the Presidential guards structure.” “President Jammeh no longer trusts non-Jola soldiers the way he used to, prior to Manlafi Corr’s case and this may have significantly led him to this bizarre alternative of recruiting exclusively Jola guards for very dangerous operations” says Kissy Kissy Mansa.

Reasons Waato Seeta, while Mr. Weight may be doing a professional job to train officers for executive protection as noted in Sanyang’s dubious memo, what is clear is that President Jammeh will in turn, use these elite American-trained forces to punish his enemies. What is deeply disturbing and potentially scandalous however, is, why a man of Mr. Weight’s supposed sophistication and experience allow his non-diplomatic American passport to be stamped with a Gambian “D3” Diplomatic Visa given him diplomatic protection? Why allow Sanyang to use business as a cover up for his mission to The Gambia?

We at The Echo are alarmed at this potentially ominous development and ask the competent United States authorities to take this very seriously and step in before it is too late particularly, for those at cyber war with the autocratic Head of State. There is evidence aplenty that ever since coming to power on July 22, 1994, President Yahya Jammeh has used non-Gambians to assassinate Gambians. A cantankerous character that comes to mind is Francisco Casso, a member of the nefarious Italian mafia who was given a Gambian diplomatic passport and allowed to operate Carte Blanc. It was Casso in a clownish show of military bravado, who shot a farmer one evening in the mangrove swamps by Radio Gambia’s Mile 7 Studious and told his trainees from the Presidential guards “I have killed a monkey.” According to our unassailable sources, the late Musa Jammeh as brutal as he was known to be, was so upset with Francisco’s action and offensive comment, that he took it up with President Jammeh the following morning.

This notwithstanding, we will in the coming days, continue to unravel Jammeh’s corruption web with graphics to support our allegations.

Editor's Note: The Echo has Mr. Weight's phone number, strreet address and may at some point, come up with it.