A Gambian man accused of torturing people during a dictatorship in the West African country will stand trial in Denver this week in a first-of-its-kind case in the United States.
Michael Correa, 45, will become the first non-U.S.-citizen to stand trial in an American federal court for torture committed abroad when his 10-day jury trial starts Monday in U.S. District Court in Denver.
Correa is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit torture and six counts of inflicting torture on specific victims. He faces up to 20 years in prison on each charge.
He is accused of torturing at least six people over several months in 2006 while he served in a special Gambian armed unit known as the “Junglers” that took orders directly from then-President Yahya Jammeh. The prosecution is being closely followed by international human rights organizations and by people across The Gambia.
“This case is definitely something that folks are watching, because it is so historic for the United States to bring a case like this, and because there has been so little accountability for the crimes under the Jammeh regime,” said Carmen Cheung Ka-Man, an attorney with The Center for Justice & Accountability, which is representing three of the six alleged victims.
Correa is accused of torturing people suspected of plotting a coup against Jammeh, according to a grand jury indictment in the case. U.S. prosecutors allege Correa beat people, electrocuted them, dripped molten plastic and acid on their bodies, put plastic bags over their heads and threatened them with guns, hot metal rods and other devices.
Correa came to the U.S. in 2016 to escort The Gambia’s vice president on a trip in New York and never left, overstaying his visa and resettling in Denver, where prosecutors said he worked as a day laborer. He was arrested without incident in 2019 and charged with the federal torture crimes in 2020.
He has pleaded not guilty and remained in federal custody.
Correa’s federal public defenders declined to comment through a pre-recorded blanket phone message which said the office does not discuss cases. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado did not return a request for comment.
When Correa was indicted, Department of Justice officials said the prosecution showed the U.S. would not be a “safe haven” for perpetrators of torture and that such perpetrators would face justice in this country.
The federal prosecution moves the U.S. into a new era, Cheung Ka-Man said.
“That’s a really important thing for our courts to do,” she said. “It means we are upholding the rule of law here, and that our courts are spaces where human rights violators can be held accountable.”
She added that the Gambian government is in the process of setting up its own war crime tribunal, and that several people involved in that effort plan to attend the Denver trial to learn how the process can work.
Sirra Ndow, a representative with the Alliance of Victim-Led Organisations, a nonprofit in The Gambia that aims to champion victims’ rights, said the U.S. prosecution, while challenging because it is taking place so far away, is broadly supported by Gambians.
Culturally, Gambians tend to avoid the justice process, she said, so that wide support is particularly notable.
“We kind of tend to shy away from going to the formal justice system, so seeing that the majority of Gambians are demanding justice is a big signal that… we never want something like this to happen again in this country,” she said.
She said the prosecution brings a measure of “satisfaction” to all torture survivors, not just the six victims identified in the U.S. case.
“Justice for one victim is justice for all,” she said.
© American Military News
