The 7 worst things Gambia's president Yahya Jammeh has ever said about gay people

Yahya Jammeh came to power in a coup in 1994

Gambia's President Yahya Jammeh (ITSUO INOUYE/AFP/Getty Images)

When he isn't claiming to have cured AIDS, Gambian president Yahya Jammeh has a history of making unbelievable homophobic comments. Here are some of his worst.

1) In a speech on Saturday Mr Jammeh said gay people would doom the world and that the “empire of homosexuals” would “go down the dirty drain”.

“All empires before collapsed not at the time they were weakest, but at the peak of their might and when they equated themselves with the Almighty Allah. So this evil empire of homosexuals will also go down the dirty drain and garbage of hell,” he said.

2) In May 2014 Mr Jammeh said he would “kill” anyone who cited the persecution of LGBTQ people as a reason for seeking asylum abroad.

“Some people go to the West and claim they are gays and that their lives are at risk in the Gambia, in order for them to be granted a stay in Europe. If I catch them I will kill them,” he in a speech in the city of Basse, according to African news service APA.

3) In February 2014 he described gay people as “vermin” who should be treated worse than mosquitoes.

“We will fight these vermins called homosexuals or gays the same way we are fighting malaria-causing mosquitoes, if not more aggressively,” he said in a speech made to mark the country’s 49th anniversary of independence from Britain.

4) In September 2013 he said that homosexuality was “more deadly than all natural disasters put together”.

In an address to the UN general assembly he put homosexuality alongside “greed” and “obsession with world domination” as the three “biggest threats to human existence” that “are more deadly than all natural disasters put together”.

5) In February 2012 Mr Jammeh said gay rights were a “great mistake” and that they “destroy culture”.

“We know what human rights are. Human beings of the same sex cannot marry or date,” he said. “If you think it is human rights to destroy our culture, you are making a great mistake because if you are in the Gambia, you are in the wrong place then.”

6) In February 2014 he said that LGBT stood for "Leprosy, Gonorrhoea, Bacteria and Tuberculosis".

“As far as I am concerned, LGBT can only stand for Leprosy, Gonorrhoea, Bacteria and Tuberculosis; all of which are detrimental to human existence,” he said.

7) In May 2008 he said he would decapitate any homosexuals he found in his country.

Mr Jammeh promised laws against LGBTQ people "stricter laws than Iran" and said he would "cut off the head" of any gay person found in Gambia. "The Gambia is a country of believers... sinful and immoral practices [such] as homosexuality will not be tolerated in this country," the president told a crowd at a political rally.