U.S. charges son of ex-Liberian leader with torture
By James Vicini
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor was charged in the United States on Wednesday with committing torture in Liberia, the Justice Department's first case under a 12-year-old anti-torture law.
Charles McArthur Emmanuel, also known as Charles "Chuckie" Taylor Jr., was charged with torture, conspiracy to torture and using a firearm during a violent crime, offenses that carry a maximum punishment of life in prison, U.S. officials said.
They said the 29-year-old Emmanuel, who was in charge of presidential security when his father ran Liberia, was accused of taking part in the brutal torture of an unidentified victim on July 24, 2002, in Monrovia to learn about his father's opponents.
According to the indictment, the torture included repeatedly burning the victim with a hot iron and scalding water, electrically shocking his genitalia and other body parts, and rubbing salt into his wounds.
The father, Charles Taylor, was one of Africa's most feared warlords. Charles Taylor, who fled Liberia in 2003, is in The Hague awaiting trial for suspected war crimes committed during Sierra Leone's civil war, in which about 50,000 people died.
Emmanuel, a U.S. citizen because he was born in the United States, previously had been arrested in late March in Miami and pleaded guilty to passport fraud for lying about his father's identity in a passport application.
The three-count indictment by a federal grand jury in Miami accusing him of torture came the day before Emmanuel was scheduled to be sentenced on the passport fraud charges, the officials said. He currently is in federal custody.
'A HISTORIC CASE'
"This marks the first time the Justice Department has charged a defendant with the crime of torture," Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher said. Other officials called it "a historic case."
When asked why there had not been any earlier torture cases, Fisher said the federal law only applied to U.S. citizens or those who are in the United States.
Evidence from around the world can be difficult to obtain, she said at a news conference. "They are hard cases."
Elise Keppler of Human Rights Watch said the group had submitted a memorandum to the Justice Department about the serious abuses in which the son has been implicated.
"Enforcement of federal laws on torture committed abroad is long overdue," she said in a statement issued in New York.
"The question is now whether the federal authorities are willing to apply the law against others. Particularly for the sake of victims, the indictment against Chuckie Taylor on torture should be the first of many cases of this kind."
The officials said they were unaware of any other criminal charges pending against Emmanuel elsewhere in the world.
Original article posted here.
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