Among others penalized on Thursday was Yahya Jammeh, former president of Gambia who came to power in 1994 and stepped down in 2017. Mr. Jammeh created a terror and assassination squad called the Junglers that he used to intimidate, interrogate and kill people who threatened him, according to the Treasury designation. Benjamin Bol Mel of South Sudan, Dan Gertler, who did business in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mukhtar Hamid Shah of Pakistan were also on the list.

The designations are the first to result from the passage last year of the Global Magnitsky Act, a bipartisan bill intended to punish people around the world who are credibly accused of serious violations of human rights and of corruption. The law was a follow-on to a similarly named law passed in 2012 designed to punish such people only in Russia. On Wednesday, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on five Russians in designations from that earlier law. Among those targeted on Wednesday was the leader of the Republic of Chechnya.

The sanctions freeze any assets the individuals or entities hold in the United States and also prevent them from using any American financial institution for banking or other purposes. Since the United States financial system has such broad global reach, the sanctions make it difficult for the individuals to use major banks anywhere in the world.