Gambian 'Jungler' arrested in US for role in torture program

Michael Sang Correa appeared in court on Thursday in Denver charged with six counts of torture and one count of conspiracy to commit torture, the DoJ said in a statement. It marks the first known time that a suspect has faced criminal prosecution over the role of the feared armed group known as 'the Junglers' in Gambia's violent police state during Jammeh's rule from 1994-2017.

A man accused of being part of a Gambian armed unit run by former president Yahya Jammeh has been charged in the United States with torturing prisoners during a crackdown after an attempted coup in 2006, the U.S. Department of Justice said. Michael Sang Correa appeared in court on Thursday in Denver charged with six counts of torture and one count of conspiracy to commit torture, the DoJ said in a statement.

It marks the first known time that a suspect has faced criminal prosecution over the role of the feared armed group known as 'the Junglers' in Gambia's violent police state during Jammeh's rule from 1994-2017. Correa was arrested under a law that makes it a crime for anyone in the United States to commit torture abroad.

"Michael Correa allegedly committed heinous acts of violence against victim after victim in a brutal effort to coerce confessions from suspected coup plotters in The Gambia," said Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski of the Justice Department's Criminal Division. Correa has yet to respond publicly to the charges and Reuters was not immediately able to locate a lawyer representing him. Jammeh has denied torture during his rule and has not been reachable for comment since he fled to exile in Equatorial Guinea after losing an election.

The Junglers were a secretive offshoot of the Gambian army that took orders from Jammeh. Rights groups and former victims say they carried out a brutal form of justice that worsened after the failed 2006 coup. Suspected coup plotters and other outspoken opponents of Jammeh were taken to the National Intelligence Agency near one of the capital Banjul's white-sand beaches, according to victims who spoke to Reuters.

The unlucky ones found themselves in the "Crocodile Hole" torture chamber, where they were shocked with electricity, beaten, burned with acid and smothered with plastic bags, they said.