Michael Sang Correa, an alleged member of a Gambian death squad, is scheduled to stand trial for torture starting on April 7, 2025. This marks the first time a non-U.S. citizen will stand trial in a U.S. federal court for torture committed abroad.
Michael Sang Correa is charged with six counts of torture and one count of conspiracy to commit torture. He is allegedly a former member of the Junglers, a notorious death squad in The Gambia operating under former Gambian President Yahya Jammeh. The indictment alleges that following an attempted coup against Jammeh’s regime in 2006, Mr. Correa and other Junglers tortured suspected participants in the coup, including by beating them, suffocating them with plastic bags, and subjecting them to electric shocks.
The U.S. government filed the charges under the extraterritorial Torture Act, a criminal law which allows it to prosecute individuals found within the United States for acts of torture committed abroad. This case has drawn significant attention from human rights advocates and legal experts, as it is the first trial of a non-U.S. citizen since the Torture Act was passed in 1994, and only the third trial under the Act. A coalition of human rights organizations, including the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA), member groups of the Alliance of Victim-Led Organizations (AVLO) and TRIAL International, played a crucial role in urging the United States to investigate allegations of international crimes attributed to Mr. Correa in The Gambia. CJA represents several of Mr. Correa’s alleged victims with co-counsel King and Spalding LLP.
The trial is a critical step towards securing truth and justice for victims of Jammeh’s dictatorship, which was characterized by widespread human rights violations, including enforced disappearances, torture, extrajudicial killings, sexual violence, and arbitrary detention.
The trial, initially scheduled for September 2024, will take place from April 7 to 18, 2025, at the Alfred A. Arraj United States Courthouse in Denver.
