Gambian ex-soldier convicted in Denver trial of torturing suspected backers of failed 2006 coup

A former member of the army in Gambia was convicted in Denver on Tuesday of costs that he tortured folks suspected of involvement in a failed coup towards the West African nation’s longtime dictator almost 20 years in the past.

Michael Sang Correa was charged with torturing 5 males believed to be opponents of Yahya Jammeh following an unsuccessful plot to take away him from energy in 2006.

A jury that heard the case in U.S. District Court docket in Denver discovered Correa responsible of torturing folks. He additionally was charged with conspiring with others to commit torture whereas serving in a army unit generally known as the “Junglers,” which reported on to Jammeh, within the newest worldwide trial tied to his regime.

Correa got here to the U.S. in 2016 to work as a bodyguard for Jammeh, finally settling in Denver, the place prosecutors stated he labored as a day laborer. Correa, who prosecutors say overstayed his visa after Jammeh’s ouster in 2017, was indicted in 2020 underneath a not often used regulation that permits folks to be tried within the U.S. judicial system for torture allegedly dedicated overseas.

Survivors traveled from Gambia, Europe and elsewhere within the U.S. to testify, telling the jury they had been tortured by strategies corresponding to being electrocuted and hung the wrong way up whereas being crushed. Some had plastic luggage put over their heads.

Prosecutors confirmed the jury pictures of victims with scars left by objects together with a bayonet, a burning cigarette and ropes. The lads had been requested to circle scars on pictures and clarify how they acquired them.

The protection had argued Correa was a low-ranking non-public who risked torture and loss of life himself if he disobeyed superiors and that he didn’t have a alternative about whether or not to take part, not to mention a choice to make about whether or not to affix a conspiracy.

However whereas the U.S. authorities agreed that there’s proof that the Junglers lived in “fixed worry,” prosecutors stated some Junglers refused to take part within the torture.