UK Slams Travel Ban On Gambia’s Ex-president Jammeh, Wife, Freezes Assets

Britain on Thursday slapped sanctions on The Gambia’s former president Yahya Jammeh as it widened travel bans and economic sanctions for human rights abuses worldwide, AFP reports.

The former dictator, whose defeat to Adama Barrow in the December 2016 election forced him to flee, was one of three from the West African nation on an updated list targeting ten people across the globe.

Jammeh, his wife Zineb, and the former director-general of the country’s National Intelligence Agency, Yankuba Badjie, are all now subject to asset freezes and a UK travel ban.

London said Jammeh was behind “inciting, promoting, ordering and being directly involved in extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, kidnappings, torture, rape, as well as wider human rights violations” after he seized power in a coup in 1994.

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Zineb Jammeh was sanctioned for the same reason, and for using charities as a cover for the illicit transfer of funds between herself and her husband.

Both are already under similar sanctions from the United States.

Others on the list include three members of the Venezuelan military, and the speaker of the parliament of the Russian region of Chechnya as well as the region’s Terek Special Rapid Response Unit.

It is accused of extrajudicial killings and torture, and a crackdown on gay men that drew international condemnation.

In Pakistan, Anwar Ahmed Khan, a former Karachi police “encounter specialist” suspected of being behind more than 190 “hits” that led to more than 400 deaths, also faces restrictions.

“Today’s sanctions send a clear message to human rights violations that the UK will hold them to account,” said UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.

Britain, which left the European Union in January, introduced its own sanctions regime in July, identifying 49 “notorious” individuals and organisations accused of human rights abuses.

The first included 25 Russians allegedly involved in the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, and 20 Saudis suspected of involvement in the death of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko was sanctioned in September in response to the disputed recent elections and crackdown on protesters.

There are now 65 people on the UK sanctions list and three organisations.

The government is coming under pressure to impose similar sanctions on Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam over abuses by the police against pro-democracy protesters, AFP reports.