By Yankuba Jallow
The US trial of an accused Liberian warlord Laye Sekou Camara, alias “K-1” or “Dragon Master” has ended in a guilty plea. Camara, facing forty years in prison for lying about his war activities on US immigration forms, pleaded guilty days before his trial was set to go ahead.
In a move that experts say may foreshadow the outcome in the US trial of Gambian Michael Correa in April, Camara’s guilty plea was a bid to persuade the judge to give him less prison time when he is sentenced in May.
Camara was the third Liberian to face trial on immigration charges related to their war time crimes in the US. The previous two ended in quick jury convictions. One is serving a 30-year prison term; the other was facing 110 years when he died of Covid before sentencing.
With 98 percent of criminal cases in US federal courts ending in a plea deal experts say Camara had little reason to hope a jury might come to a different conclusion in his case. Depending on Camara’s sentence lawyers for Correa – facing far more serious charges – might see Camara’s guilty plea as a sign he should also plead guilty.
Correa was given a plea offer in 2024 according to Lindsay Bailey, a lawyer with US-based Center for Justice and Accountability that has supported Gambian victims in the case, but he rejected it.
“We cannot speculate about whether the prosecutor will offer Correa another plea agreement, and whether Correa will or should choose to accept it,” said Bailey pointing out the difference between the two charges. “The facts that the prosecutors need to prove and the potential sentences are quite different. We also do not know what evidence the prosecutors planned to offer against K1, and the strength of that evidence,” she said.
But there are some similarities between the two cases. The Liberian cases have asked American juries to consider crimes that are almost unheard of in the US and juries have found shocking. They also require them to understand an African context that is unfamiliar to their own. Experts have speculated that the sheer horror of the Liberian crimes made American juries more likely to convict.
Correa, 41, served in the Gambia National Army and was allegedly a member of former President Yahya Jammeh’s hit squad known as the “Junglers” which is accused of murder, torture and numerous other human rights violations during his 22 year rule that ended in 2016. Correa will appear before the District Court in the US state of Colorado.
Camara, 46, is a former commander of a rebel group Lurd which joined Liberia’s civil war in 1999. He was due to go on trial on 21 January 2025 in a US District Court in the state of Philadelphia on four immigration fraud charges, including ““lying that he had never served in or been a member of a rebel group or insurgent organization,” on US immigration forms. All 17 Liberian witnesses that agreed to testify against him arrived in Liberia ahead of the trial last week.
Just seven had a chance to testify against him in a hastily arranged sentencing hearing held Thursday. Over 6 hours the witnesses detailed dozens of murders committed by Camara along with the use of child soldiers, torture, and forced sexual enslavement.
Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (Lurd), was one of two warring factions that forced Charles Taylor, the then Liberian president, to resign as they laid siege on the capital Monrovia. Sixteen European and West African perpetrators in Liberia’s civil wars have faced civil and criminal charges in the US and Europe since the end of the war in 2003.
No one has ever faced trial for war related crimes on Liberian soil. In 2024 President Joseph Boakai finally took the first steps towards establishing a war crimes court by establishing the Office of the War and Economics Crimes Court. But steps to establish to court proper have been slow.
Gambia’s 2018 Truth Reconciliation and Reparations Commission recommended the prosecution of 69 people, including former President Yahya Jammeh and his hit squad known as the “Junglers”. The notorious death squad was alleged to have committed human rights abuses under the direction of Jammeh. The Gambia Government accepted the recommendations for the prosecution of all members of the squad, including Michael Correa, who was mentioned repeatedly in the Commission’s report.
In 2020, the U.S Department of Justice charged Correa with torture and conspiracy to commit the torture of at least six people. The Torture Act allows the U.S to try individuals within its territory for acts of torture committed outside its borders. Correa is only the second person to be tried under the act and the first non-American. For the first twenty years after the act was passed Chuckie Taylor, a US citizen and son of Liberian president Charles Taylor, was the only person to be tried under the law. He is serving a sentence of 97 years for crimes committed in Liberia.
It is alleged in Correa’s indictment that he and other “junglers” beat their victims, put plastic bags over their heads, and used electric shocks while they were interrogated, causing victims severe pain and suffering. Torture is defined by the U.S Torture Act as an act committed by a public official or person acting in an official capacity that is intended to cause severe physical or mental pain or suffering to a person in the perpetrator’s control.
Correa was arrested in September 2019 for staying in the U.S after his visa expired and was detained in a U.S prison. In June 2020, he was indicted for torture and conspiracy to commit torture. He is in detention in the U.S awaiting trial. During the trial, the jury will listen to the evidence of witnesses, many who will travel from The Gambia, and the arguments of the lawyers before deciding his fate.
The 22-year rule of Former President Yahya Jammeh was characterised by mass human rights violation ranging from enforced disappearances, torture, unlawful killings, and arbitrary arrests and detention. Human rights violations were carried out systematically pursuant to a state orchestrated policy, to deliberately silence any form of dissent or threat to Jammeh’s rule by the state security apparatus.
The “Junglers”
Former President Yahya Jammeh created the Junglers, a special group within the army, without any legal basis for its operations and allegedly with the sole task of repressing anyone considered a critic or a threat to his administration. According to the Truth Commission their operations were generally covert and they worked directly under the control and supervision of Jammeh. On the orders of Jammeh, they carried out extra-judicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and acts of torture with total disregard for the functions of the armed forces to defend and not oppress the people.
The group was first referred to as the “Patrol Team” and later “Junglers” due to the military jungler training most members of the group underwent. In 2006, the activities of the group became public, due to their violent acts. They then became known as “Black Black”, derived from their dark mode of dressing during operations. The group was amorphous with fluid membership and at one point was comprised nearly 40 personnel drawn from the President’s Guards Unit of the Army.
The Junglers caused widespread fear and anxiety amongst Gambians which, experts say, made it easy for dictatorship to flourish allowing Jammeh to violate human rights with impunity. This emboldened him to make a statement on the State broadcaster in May 2016 that he would personally supervise the killing of anyone who destabilised the country.
The Commission found that most victims of the Junglers fell under three categories. There were those perceived by Jammeh as security threats; vocal critics of the president who challenged and condemned his rhetoric and violations of human rights; and business and close associates who fell out of favour with Jammeh.
After a delay, Correa’s trial is set to begin April 2025.
This story was a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the West Africa Justice Reporting Project.
