DENVER (CN) — U.S. attorneys presented opening arguments to a Denver jury on Tuesday, asking them to convict a former Gambian Jungler on six torture-related charges for acts carried out under The Gambia’s former president in 2006 following a failed coup.
“The mission of the Junglers was to forcibly obtain confessions,” said U.S. Attorney Marie Zisa.
Former The Gambia President Yahya Jammeh held power from 1994, after leading a coup against the former president Dawda Jawara, until he lost reelection in 2016 and fled the country the following year. Throughout his tenure, prosecutors say Jammeh ruled over the country as a dictator, arresting and torturing those who opposed him while suppressing the media and other critics.
Following the discovery of a coup plot in 2006, Jammeh ordered members of his special forces unit, the Junglers, which included Michael Sang Correa, to arrest and torture those who organized the attempted coup and challenged his rule.
To obtain confessions, prosecutors said Correa and other Junglers strung their victims from trees in bags and beat them. According to prosecutors, Correa electrocuted victims, burned cigarettes on their skin, poured molten plastic on their legs and rubbed sand in their eyes.
“It was the object of the conspiracy to maintain, preserve, protect, and strengthen the power and authority of President Yahya Jammeh, and to intimidate, neutralize, punish, weaken, and eliminate actual and perceived opponents of Yahya Jammeh’s government, by means of torture,” prosecutors wrote in the 2020 indictment.
In addition to one charge of conspiracy to commit torture, Correa faces five counts of torture or aiding and abetting the torture of Yaya Darboe, Pharing Sanyang, Tamsir Jasseh, Demba Dem and Pierre Mendy. A former bodyguard to Jammeh, Mendy passed away in 2021. Several of the victims are expected to testify in the trial.
If Correa is found guilty, each count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and restitution, adding up to a potential sentence of 280 years.
“You will hear excuses the defendant previously gave, but those excuses do not exonerate him,” Zisa said. “People had choices, and you will hear how some Junglers refused to participate in the torture and others, like the defendant, tortured the victims and seemed to enjoy it.”
Correa entered the U.S. in 2016 and was arrested in September 2019 for overstaying his visa.
It is rare for a non-U.S. citizen to be prosecuted in the U.S. for crimes alleged to have occurred outside the nation’s borders. However, under the international law of “universal jurisdiction,” the Gambian government, several human rights groups, and a handful of U.S. senators petitioned the U.S. Department of Justice to take up the case in 2020.
Correa’s defense attorneys do not deny that he committed acts of torture, but they say he did so under orders from his country’s president. Federal public defender Jared Westbroek said that as a private in the Gambian military, Correa was paid the equivalent of $10 per day, ranked as “the lowest person on the totem pole.”
“President Jammeh always dealt violently with the opposition,” Westbroek said. “The theme throughout these witnesses will be that if you’re suspected of being in the coup, you will be arrested and tortured.”
Westbroek argued that Correa can’t have participated in a conspiracy since he was acting under coercion and duress the entire time.
As their first witness, the U.S. called to the stand Maggie Dwyer, a senior lecturer in African studies from the University of Edinburgh, who traced the country’s political history for the jury.
Home to 2.4 million people, The Gambia follows its eponymous river through the western African country of Senegal with a border on the Atlantic Ocean. A former British colony, The Gambia gained independence in 1965.
Throughout Jammeh’s presidency, Dwyer said, “he became focused on this issue of loyalty and he became increasingly repressive.”
According to the Center for Justice and Accountability, other Junglers have faced prosecution abroad, including Bai Lowe, who was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted by a German court in 2023. Following a Swiss trial last year, former Interior Minister Ousman Sonko was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
George W. Bush-appointed Senior U.S. Judge Christine Arguello is presiding over the trial at the Alfred Arraj U.S. Courthouse in downtown Denver. The trial is expected to last two weeks. A jury of 12 and two alternates was seated on Monday.