German police raided a house of Gambian asylum seekers who claimed to have been hitmen hired by former president Yahya Jammeh.
The exiled leader is accused of ordering extra-judicial killings during his two-decade rule.
Federal prosecutors in Baden-Württemberg are investigating a group of Gambian asylum seekers who claim to have been part of a hit squad within Gambia’s military during Jammeh’s regime.
As military personnel, the seven suspects were allegedly involved in the torture, ill-treatment, and murder of Jammeh’s opponents, according to a report by German daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.
The Gambian ex-ruler Jammeh now lives in exile in Equatorial Guinea.
The suspects also stated in their asylum hearings at Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) that they had been involved in the mistreatment of prisoners in Gambia’s prisons.
It’s not the first case where prosecutors in Germany investigate crimes committed by would-be asylum seekers.
In April this year, prosecutors charged former members of Syria’s Intelligence Services for torturing fellow Syrians.
Germany’s Code of Crimes Against International Law, which came into force in June 2002, includes the so-called principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows German courts to prosecute crimes against international law even if they were not committed in Germany, and neither the perpetrator nor the victim are Germans.
