(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has voiced “revulsion” at a government-orchestrated campaign to smear murdered journalist Deyda Hydara following the release of a report by the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) on its ongoing investigation into his death. The report is full of gratuitous detail about the journalist’s private life and absurd theories about the motives for the […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has voiced “revulsion” at a government-orchestrated campaign to smear murdered journalist Deyda Hydara following the release of a report by the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) on its ongoing investigation into his death. The report is full of gratuitous detail about the journalist’s private life and absurd theories about the motives for the murder.
“Do we have to remind the NIA that Deyda Hydara was the victim and not the suspect in last December’s fatal ambush?” the organisation asked. “His family and friends have already suffered enough and should not have to put up with the government’s attempts to divert attention.”
“This smear campaign based on trashy police procedures will not succeed in covering up the investigators’ negligence. The NIA has just demonstrated its ineptitude by publishing this collection of malicious gossip in the hope of tarnishing the memory of a respected journalist slain six months ago by gunmen who are still at large,” said RSF.
“Until now, we were just amazed at the slow pace and fumbling of the government investigators. But now we are convinced that they have decided to never reveal the truth and are prepared to stoop to anything to get their way,” the organisation added.
In an interview published on 3 June in the pro-government “Daily Observer”, Interior Minister Babucarr Jatta described the Hydara case as “a national issue” and dismissed as “premature” the calls by RSF and Hydara’s associate, Pap Saine, for assistance from foreign investigators. Gambia’s police and security agents must complete their own enquiries, he said.
Also on 3 June, the NIA sent copies of a 23-page report on the state of its investigation to all of the news media in the capital. RSF has obtained a copy. It is a compilation of all the information obtained by the police and the NIA on “the shooting incident resulting in the death of Mr. Deyda Hydara.”
The report points out that the NIA took over the investigation on 8 February, after the police inspector general drafted “an interim report which was found to be inadequate and gave no substantial lead.” Although stamped “confidential”, the entire 23-page report was published on 6 June in the “Daily Observer”, at the government’s behest.
In the chapter on “findings”, the NIA report says Hydara’s newspaper, “The Point”, became famous for its “virulent unguarded attacks on all and sundry in the present government, prominent Gambians, public institutions, private enterprises, individual businessmen and groups, international organisations, security agents, and international figures, etc.”
It said Hydara was “invited” several times to meetings with the security services “to be cautioned and advised to set records straight, particularly whenever he had erred and was way off the path upholding the canons and ethics of journalism profession.”
The report then goes into detail about strictly personal aspects of Hydara’s life that have no bearing on the murder. In its conclusions, it says that the most likely motive for the murder was either personal revenge, especially by a jealous husband, or a desire to cover up “financial misappropriation” by his associate and childhood friend, Saine.
