A former beauty queen accuses Gambia’s former dictator of rape

WHEN FATOU JALLOW was crowned Gambia’s beauty queen in 2014, it was one of the happiest days of her life. But it was the prelude to a nightmare. Soon afterwards Yahya Jammeh, then the country’s dictator, asked the 18-year-old to marry him. Ms Jallow refused, but Mr Jammeh’s aides kept calling. After accepting an invitation to his home to attend a religious event, Ms Jallow says she was drugged and raped by Mr Jammeh. “He asked me what made me think that I could deny him,” she recalls. “I kept screaming and he kept telling me no one could hear me.”