A former member of Gambia’s military was convicted in federal court for torturing five people accused of involvement in a failed coup against the West African country’s longtime dictator nearly 20 years ago, capping a rare prosecution in the United States for torture committed abroad.
Jurors at the weeklong trial in Denver also found Michael Sang Correa guilty of being part of a conspiracy to commit torture against suspected opponents while serving in a military unit known as the “Junglers,” which reported directly to Yahya Jammeh.
Correa came to the U.S. in 2016 to work as a bodyguard for Jammeh, eventually settling in Denver, where prosecutors said he worked as a day laborer.
Correa, who prosecutors say overstayed his visa, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2019 and then indicted the following year under a seldom-used law that allows people to be tried in the U.S. judicial system for torture allegedly committed abroad.
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