President Yahya Jammeh has agreed to suspend further execution of death row inmates, says former Senegalese prime minister. Souleymane Ndene Ndiaye made this disclosureafter a closed-door meeting with President Jammeh at State House.

He said:“My visit [to President Jammeh] is by virtue of a private pre-occupation I have had especially with respect to the executions that took place in The Gambia. Some people were condemned to death and eventually executed. As a concerned Senegambian citizen, I took the honour upon myself and pleaded with President Jammeh for clemency and his magnanimity.”

Ndiaye, the last prime minister in Wade’s Government and now an opposition MP in the Senegalese Parliament,acknowledged that The Gambia is a sovereign and independent state, while intimating that he has a special relationship with Dr. Momodou Tangara. “Coupled with other interventions for clemency to suspend the ongoing executions in The Gambia, I took the honour upon myself to beg President Jammeh to pardon those on death row,” he further stated.

He revealed that President Jammeh has decided to suspend the executions , which assurance was made in the presence ofChief Justice Emmanuel Agimand Foreign Affairs minister Tangara. “President Jammeh has assured me that he is going to suspend the executions and when I go back to Senegal, I will ensure that I convey the message to President Macky Sall,” he concluded.