\n The Gambia's new president has fired the head of the national prison system, officials said Sunday, taking aim at a service denounced for alleged abuses under the former regime.\n<\/p>\n
\n President Adama Barrow on Friday \"sacked David Colley, the director-general of the Gambia Prison Service\", a government source said late Saturday. The prison service confirmed the news on Sunday.\n<\/p>\n
\n Colley had run the penitentiary system nearly non-stop since 1997 under Yahya Jammeh, the longtime leader of the tiny West African state who was forced out of power last month after losing an election.\n<\/p>\n
\n The United Nations and rights groups repeatedly condemned The Gambia's security services under Jammeh, blaming them for arbitrary detentions, extrajudicial killings and torture.\n<\/p>\n
\n They also criticised the sordid conditions and detainee treatment in Gambian prisons, notably at Mile Two, the biggest compound in the country located outside the capital Banjul.\n<\/p>\n
\n Interior Minister Mai Fatty led journalists on a tour of Mile Two on February 13, revealing concrete cells in almost complete darkness where prisoners lived in squalor, and apologised on camera for the conditions.\n<\/p>\n
\n Amnesty International said that under Jammeh, \"Gambia's climate of fear was sustained for years through regular arbitrary arrests and detention, as well as routine torture.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"You could never be sure who would be arrested, when or why,\" it said in a December statement.\n<\/p>\n
\n Since effectively taking power late last month, Barrow has rushed to uphold pledges to overhaul those services.\n<\/p>\n
\n Gambian police arrested the former spy chief, head of the notorious National Intelligence Agency this month. He and eight subordinates have been charged with the murder of an opposition member.\n<\/p>\n
\n Barrow also appointed a former UN war crimes prosecutor as the country's new chief justice.\n<\/p>\n
\n Britain has pledged support for its former colony for justice reform.\n<\/p>\n
\n Colley, the sacked prison chief, first served under Jammeh from 1997 to 2007, the penitentiary source said. He was fired in June 2007, then reinstated in 2008.\n<\/p>\n
\n In January 2012 Jammeh moved him to the interior ministry, then reinstated him as prison services director general in April 2013.\n<\/p>\n
\n The prison service said Colley would be replaced by Ansumana Manneh, currently the director of another prison, at Old Jeshwang.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Gambia's new president has fired the head of the national prison system, officials said Sunday, taking aim at a service denounced for alleged abuses under the former regime. President Adama Barrow on Friday \"sacked David Colley, the director-general of the Gambia Prison Service\", a government source said late Saturday. The prison service confirmed the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-32288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n