Mohamed Salah’s trophy-laden spell with Liverpool is set to extend to a decade after the prolific Egypt forward signed a new contract with the Premier League leader, ending months of uncertainty over his future.
The 32-year-old Salah was one of three key senior players — with Trent Alexander-Arnold and Virgil van Dijk — due to be out of contract at the end of this season.
He is the first to extend his stay, having already established himself as a club great with 243 goals in 394 appearances, placing him third in the list of Liverpool's all-time top scorers.
Liverpool didn’t disclose the length of Salah’s new deal in an announcement on Friday but manager Arne Slot did, saying in a news conference it was a two-year contract.
“Of course I’m very excited," said Salah, who joined from Roma in 2017 for 42 million euros ($50 million). "We have a great team now. Before also we had a great team. But I signed because I think we have a chance to win other trophies and enjoy my football.
“It’s great, I had my best years here. I played eight years, hopefully it’s going to be 10. Enjoying my life here, enjoying my football. I had the best years in my career."
Salah has been either tied or alone as the Premier League's top scorer in three seasons, been voted as the league's player of the year twice, and has lifted seven major trophies including the Premier League in 2020 and the Champions League in 2019.
Helped by Salah's league-leading 27 goals this campaign, Liverpool holds an 11-point lead in the Premier League in its bid for a record-tying 20th English top-flight title.
“I would like to say to (the fans), I am very, very happy to be here," Salah said. "I signed here because I believe we can win a lot of big trophies together. Keep supporting us and we’ll give it our best, and hopefully in the future we’re going to win more trophies.”
Salah's future at Liverpool appeared in the balance for much of this season. He had been linked with a move to the Saudi league — Liverpool rejected an offer worth a reported $188 million in 2023 — and, in an apparent show of brinksmanship, gave a number of interviews stating he was playing his last year at the club because he was no closer to agreeing to a new deal.
Slot, however, said he knew for some time that Salah was likely to stay at Liverpool. And he praised sporting director Richard Hughes and the Fenway Sports Group ownership for securing the forward's future, which meant deviating from the club's policy of not handing players over 30 years of age lucrative new contracts.
British media reported Friday that a cut in Salah's reported wages of 350,000 pounds ($460,000) a week was never on the agenda in discussions.
“Mo Salah is such a great player that as a free agent he can go probably to every club in the world, wherever he wants to,” Slot said. “But he stayed at our club.”
For Slot, Salah's continued presence boosts Liverpool's appeal in the transfer market.
“It gives a positive vibe to the club — maybe a positive vibe we might not need but it’s always good to have positive vibes instead of negative vibes," the Dutch coach added.
“If you want to sign new players or players who want to extend here, it is always a positive to see one of our star players over the last seven or eight years has made the choice to extend his contract. It also shows maybe how ambitious this club is: not only Mo, but the owners."
Attention now turns to whether Van Dijk and Alexander-Arnold will follow Salah in committing their future to Liverpool.
Van Dijk, the commanding Netherlands center back who has been at Anfield since 2018, said in comments reported Monday that he was getting closer to signing a new contract.
“There is progress, yeah,” said the Liverpool captain, who turns 34 in July. “Listen, these are internal discussions and we’ll see.”
Alexander-Arnold, however, is the most likely to leave Liverpool having been linked heavily with a move to Real Madrid.
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FILE - Liverpool's Mohamed Salah controls the ball during the English Premier League soccer match between Liverpool and Newcastle United at Anfield stadium in Liverpool, England, on Dec. 16, 2021. (AP Photo/Jon Super, File)
FILE - Liverpool's Mohamed Salah lifts the trophy after winning the Champions League final soccer match between Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool at the Wanda Metropolitano Stadium in Madrid, on June 2, 2019. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)
FILE - Liverpool's Mohamed Salah scores his side's third goal during the English Premier League soccer match between Liverpool and Arsenal at Anfield Stadium, Liverpool, England, on Nov. 20, 2021. (AP Photo/Jon Super, File)
Fulham's Alex Iwobi, right, challenges for the ball with Liverpool's Mohamed Salah during the English Premier League soccer match between Fulham and Liverpool, at Craven Cottage, London, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
DENVER (AP) — A former member of Gambia's military was convicted in federal court Tuesday of torturing five people accused of involvement in a failed coup against the West African country's longtime dictator nearly 20 years ago, capping a rare prosecution in the United States for torture committed abroad.
Jurors at the weeklong trial in Denver also found Michael Sang Correa guilty of being part of a conspiracy to commit torture against suspected opponents while serving in a military unit known as the “Junglers,” which reported directly to Yahya Jammeh.
Correa came to the U.S. in 2016 to work as a bodyguard for Jammeh, eventually settling in Denver, where prosecutors said he worked as a day laborer.
Correa, who prosecutors say overstayed his visa, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2019 and then indicted the following year under a seldom-used law that allows people to be tried in the U.S. judicial system for torture allegedly committed abroad.
The law has only been used twice since 1994 but both of the previous cases were brought against U.S. citizens. The U.S. Department of Justice said the verdict was “the first conviction of a non-U.S. citizen on torture charges in a federal district court.”
“If you commit these atrocities in your country, don't come to the United States and seek refuge,” said Steve Cagen, the head of ICE's Homeland Security Investigations' Denver office.
Demba Dem, a former member of the Gambian parliament who testified to being tortured by Correa and others, was among those in the packed courtroom to hear the verdict.
“It was a victory of democracy, a victory of all the victims,“ he said. ”Those alive and those who passed away."
1. Dem and other survivors traveled from Gambia, Europe and elsewhere in the U.S. to testify, telling the jury they were tortured by methods such as being electrocuted and hung upside down while being beaten. Some had plastic bags put over their heads.
Prosecutors showed the jury photos of victims with scars left by a bayonet, a burning cigarette, ropes and other objects. The men were asked to circle scars on photos and explain how they received them.
Members of the media from Gambia covered the trial in Denver and immigrants now living in the U.S. attended proceedings, including sisters Dr. Jaye Ceesay and Olay Jabbi. They said their brother was killed by Junglers after returning to Gambia in 2013 to start a computer school for children there and they wanted to support others victimized by the regime.
The defense had argued Correa was a low-ranking private who risked torture and death himself if he disobeyed superiors and that he did not have a choice about whether to participate, let alone a decision to make about whether to join a conspiracy. One of his lawyers declined to comment after the verdict.
But while the U.S. government agreed that there's evidence that the Junglers lived in “constant fear,” prosecutors said at trial that some Junglers refused to participate in the torture.
Jammeh, a member of the military, seized power in a coup from the country’s first president in 1994, and survived three significant coup attempts, making him suspicious of the very military he depended on to stay in power, according to testimony.
Jammeh has been accused of ordering opponents tortured, jailed and killed during his more than 22-year rule of Gambia, a country surrounded by Senegal except for a small Atlantic coastline. He lost the 2016 presidential election and went into exile in Equatorial Guinea in 2017 after initially refusing to step down.
In 2021, a truth commission in Gambia urged that the perpetrators of crimes committed under Jammeh’s regime be prosecuted by the government. Other countries have also tried people connected with his rule.
Last year, Jammeh’s former interior minister was sentenced to 20 years behind bars by a Swiss court for crimes against humanity. In 2023, a German court convicted a Gambian man who was also a member of the Junglers of murder and crimes against humanity for involvement in the killing of government critics in Gambia.
Human rights activists in Gambia hope those who committed torture under Jammeh's regime will also be held accountable at home.
"Correa’s conviction is very significant in the quest for justice for victims of human rights violations, but many Junglers and other human rights abusers continue living in impunity. Some are even living freely in Banjul,” said Kadijatou Kuyateh, spokesperson for the Alliance of Victim-Led Organisations, referring to Gambia's capital.
Correa faces up to 20 years for each of the six counts he was convicted of. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after lawyers determine when survivors can return to Denver to speak about the impact of his actions.
Demba Dem is photographed outside Denver federal court in Denver, Wednesday, April 9, 2025, after he testifying in the trial of Michael Sang Correa. (AP Photo/Colleen Slevin)
Steve Cagen, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations, speaks to the media following the torture conviction of former Gambian military member Michael Sang Correa in federal court in Denver on Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
J. Bishop Grewell, acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado, speaks to the media following the torture conviction of former Gambian military member Michael Sang Correa in federal court in Denver on Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
Demba Dem, a former member of the Gambian parliament who was tortured by former Gambian military member Michael Sang Correa, stands outside federal court following Correa's conviction in Denver on Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
FILE - This photo shows the Alfred A. Arraj United States Courthouse in Denver on March 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Colleen Slevin, file)
