DENVER — A man accused of torturing prisoners at the direction of a former dictator of a West African country was found guilty on seven counts Tuesday in an unprecedented trial in Denver District Court.
The trial, which began April 7, was sought by federal authorities under a rarely used law that allows people to be prosecuted in the U.S. judicial system for torture allegedly committed abroad.
Michael Sang Correa, of Gambia, in West Africa, was indicted in 2020 and was charged with torturing five people and of being part of a conspiracy to torture alleged coup plotters while serving with the Junglers, a military unit that reported directly to former Gambian president Yahya Jammeh in 2006.
Correa was the first non-U.S. citizen to be tried under Title 18 U.S. torture laws.
Prosecutors said Correa came to the U.S. to serve as a bodyguard for former President Jammeh in December 2016 and overstayed his visa after Jammeh was ousted in 2017. Since sometime after arriving, Correa had been living in Denver and working as a day laborer, they said.
Crime
Denver man accused in Gambian torture crimes, feds say
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials said in a news release at the time of Correa’s indictment that the Junglers were composed of individuals selected from the ranks of Gambia Armed Forces (GAF) but operated outside the regular GAF chain of command. After learning individuals within Gambia were attempting to overthrow his government, Jammeh arrested them and "subjected to severe physical and mental abuses," according to the indictment.
Prosecutors alleged Correa and other members of the Junglers severely beat their victims, suffocated them with plastic bags, and inflicted other forms of torture. In one case, he beat a victim with sticks, palm branches, and wires and extinguished a cigarette on the victim, the indictment read.
In court last week, victims who traveled from Gambia, Europe and elsewhere in the U.S. recalled the number of ways in which they were tortured.
Correa's lawyers did dispute that the defendant was involved in the torture of at least one of the victims, even though the victim said Correa, like the other Junglers, was wearing a face mask. He said he knew Correa from working with him at the president's official home and recognized his “walking gait.”
But the suspect’s lawyers argued Correa was a low-ranking private who risked being tortured himself or even killed if he refused Jammeh's orders.
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Gambian torture victims testify against member of former dictator's military
Correa now faces up to 120 years in federal prison.
In 2021, a truth commission in Gambia urged that the perpetrators of crimes committed under Jammeh's regime be prosecuted by the government. Other countries have also tried people connected with his rule.
Last year, Jammeh’s former interior minister was sentenced to 20 years behind bars by a Swiss court for crimes against humanity. In 2023, a German court convicted a Gambian man who was also a member of the Junglers of murder and crimes against humanity for involvement in the killing of government critics in Gambia.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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