A Colorado jury convicted a Gambian national, Michael Sang Correa, on torture charges for his participation in the torture of numerous victims in The Gambia in 2006, including through beating and flesh burning, because of the victims’ purported involvement in a plot against The Gambia’s then-President Yahya Jammeh.
“Michael Sang Correa tried to evade responsibility for his crimes in The Gambia by coming to the United States and hiding his past,” said Matthew R. Galeotti, Head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “But we found him, we investigated him, and we prosecuted him.”
The torture inflicted by Correa and his co-conspirators was abhorrent, said Acting U.S. Attorney J. Bishop Grewell for the District of Colorado.
According to evidence presented at trial, Correa, 46, served in an armed unit known as the “Junglers,” which answered to Jammeh. The jury found that, as a Jungler, Correa conspired with others to commit torture.
The jury also found that, together with others, he tortured five victims. The evidence at trial showed that Correa and his co-conspirators targeted these victims based on suspicions that they plotted against Jammeh.
The evidence at trial proved that in March 2006, shortly after a failed coup attempt, Correa and his co-conspirators transported the victims to the main prison of The Gambia, known as “Mile 2 Prison.”
For the rest of March and well into April 2006, Correa and his co-conspirators beat, stabbed, burned, and electrocuted the victims. A victim testified that he had his thigh burned by hot, molten plastic; the Junglers also placed the victim in a large bag, suspended him in the air, and dropped him to the ground.
Another victim testified that he was suffocated when Correa and his co-conspirators placed a plastic bag over his head; one of Correa’s co-conspirators also put the barrel of a pistol in his mouth.
In addition to suffocation from a plastic bag over the head, another victim testified he was electrocuted on his body, including his genitals; hanged upside down and beaten in that position; and stabbed in the shoulder.
A fourth victim endured electrocution and was hit in the head with a pistol. A fifth victim’s testimony indicated that he had cigarettes extinguished into his skin and experienced electrocution and was also struck in the face with a hammer.
These and other horrific acts of torture and abuse emerged in the testimony of the victims at trial and revealed that Correa played an integral role in inflicting this torture on the victims.
Ten years after these crimes, Correa obtained a visa to enter the United States, arriving in this country in December 2016. Correa escaped apprehension until 2019, and upon his arrest by ICE that year, he was placed in removal proceedings. He was charged with torture in 2020. This is the first conviction of a non-U.S. citizen on torture charges in a federal district court.
Correa faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for each of the five torture counts and the count of conspiracy to commit torture. He will remain in U.S. custody pending his sentencing at a date to be determined by the court.
