Liberian Dictator's Son Convicted In U.S. For Torture

Miami, FL (AHN) - A federal jury in Miami, Florida convicted Thursday the American son of former Liberian president Charles Taylor for torturing people in Liberia during his father's dictatorial rule in the African country.

The verdict makes Charles McArthur Emmanuel, also known as Charles "Chuckie" Taylor Jr., 31, the first person to be convicted under a 1994 U.S. law punishing citizens who commit torture overseas. He will be sentenced on Jan. 9.

Victims testified in court that Taylor and his men tortured them while he was chief of Liberia's anti-terrorism unit and national police from 1999 to 2002. They said they were electrocuted, cut or stabbed, exposed to biting ants, and burned with molten plastic, lighted cigarettes, candle wax and iron because they were suspected as rebels or rebel sympathizers.

Taylor was born in Massachusetts but moved to Liberia in 1997, when his father became president of that country. When his father resigned in August 2003, Taylor went to Trinidad and returned to the U.S. via Miami in 2006. He was jailed for 11 months for using a spurious passport before his indictment for torture.

The elder Taylor is being tried by the UN war crimes tribunal in the Netherlands for perpetrating murder, rape and mutilation of civilians in Sierra Leone during that's country's civil war.