Former Gambian death squad member Michael Sang Correa has been convicted by a US jury on Tuesday for the torture of political detainees in the immediate aftermath of an abortive coup in 2006.
Correa was a member of the Gambian army at the time and took part in torture session by a death squad which was under the direct command of former President Yahya Jammeh.
The former soldier was found guilty of beating and using other forms of torture on alleged coup plotters. He has been in detention in the United States after overstaying his visa.
He could face a maximum sentence of 20 years for each of the six count charges against him.
Consequently the charges could draw a sentence of up to 120 years.
The trial got underway on Monday, April 7.
Correa’s trial is the first such case concerning a non-American national in the United States under the extraterritorial Torture Act despite his alleged crimes happening in The Gambia.
The Gambian was arrested in June 2020 and spirited before Judge N. Reid Neureiter and charged with six counts of attempts to inflict severe physical pain and suffering on individuals in his custody during this period and one count of conspiracy to commit torture.
At the time of those charges were brought against Correa, Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said ”Michael Correa allegedly committed heinous acts of violence against victim after victim in a brutal effort to coerce confessions from suspected coup plotters in The Gambia”.
Correa, is a former member of the Junglers, who at the behest of President Yahya Jammeh allegedly carried out tortures, extrajudicial killings, disappearances and rapes targeting political opponents and other individuals who fell out of favour with the government.
He was among several soldiers selected from the ranks of the Gambia Armed Forces (GAF) who received directed orders from Jammeh outside the regular GAF chain of command.
Their methods which were carried out at Mile 2 Central Prison and then National Intelligence Agency (NIA) headquarters in Banjul included repeated beating of victims using fists, army boots, plastic pipes, wires, and branches.
Testimonies at the Gambia’s truth commission suggested that victims heads were covered with plastic bags, while others were electrocuted or acid dripped on them.
WN/as/APA