Exiled former president accused of looting millions

BANJUL, Gambia — Exiled Gambian ruler Yahya Jammeh stole millions of dollars in his final weeks in power, plundering the country’s coffers and shipping luxury vehicles by cargo plane, a special adviser for the new president said Sunday.

Meanwhile, a regional military force worked to secure the tiny West African nation so that the democratically elected president, Adama Barrow, could return home after taking the oath of office in neighboring Senegal on Thursday because of concerns for his safety.

At a news conference in the Senegalese capital late Sunday, Barrow’s special adviser, Mai Ahmad Fatty, said the president “will return home as soon as possible.”

Underscoring the challenges facing the new administration, Fatty said Jammeh made off with more than $11.4 million during a two-week period alone. That is only what they have discovered so far after Jammeh and his family took an offer of exile after more than 22 years in power and departed late Saturday.

“The coffers are virtually empty,” Fatty said. “It has been confirmed by technicians in the ministry of finance and the Central Bank of the Gambia.”

Fatty also said a Chadian cargo plane had transported luxury goods out of the country on Jammeh’s behalf in his final hours in power, including an unknown number of vehicles.

Jammeh is now in Equatorial Guinea, which is not a state party to the International Criminal Court. Jammeh’s agreement to step down brought an end to a political crisis in the tiny nation of 1.9 million that brought it to the brink of a regional military intervention.

Barrow, who defeated Jammeh in December elections, will begin forming a Cabinet and working with Gambia’s national assembly to reverse the state of emergency Jammeh declared in his final days in power, said Halifa Sallah, spokesman for the coalition backing the new leader.