Meet the president who forced thousands to take bogus HIV herbs as cure

The Gambia's former leader, Yahya Jammeh [Photo: Courtesy]

• The Gambia's former leader, Yahya Jammeh, left the country a year ago after two decades in power
• Yahya Jammeh has been accused of many crimes including forceful treatment of HIV patients
• He allegedly forced thousands of people with HIV to undergo treatment with a concoction of herbs
• He claimed he had invented the cure himself. An unknown number died

As the first person in The Gambia to publicly declare himself HIV-positive, Lamin Ceesay thought he was doing the right thing. It was back in 2000, when many people were still ignorant about HIV, and when HIV-positive people had to cope with stigma and prejudice on top of everything else.

On World Aids Day that year, Ceesay plucked up the courage to go public and took part in a street march put on by an HIV charity. It earned him the respect of health campaigners worldwide. But a few years later it also brought him to the attention of Gambia's president, Yahya Jammeh.