By: Kemo Kanyi
An alleged member of former President Yahya Jammeh’s killer squad Michael Sang Correa will stand trial in the U.S next month.
Former army captain Sang Correa is scheduled to appear before a U.S court on 7 April 2024, for the beginning of his trial.
Correa’s trial in the US will be unprecedented as it will be the first time a foreign national will be tried in a U.S federal court for torture committed outside the federal territory.
Correa has been charged with six counts of torture and one count of conspiracy to commit torture.
The bill of indictment alleges that Correa and other members of Jammeh’s killer squad tortured suspects in the 2006 Ndure Cham-led foiled coup such as 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 that allows it to prosecute individuals found within the United States for acts of torture committed abroad, reported Trial International.
Correa’s trial will be the first trial of a non-U.S. citizen since the Torture Act was passed in 1994, and only the third one under the Act.
“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,” Trial International reported.
