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Liberia/US
Chuckie Taylor gets 97 years in jail for torture
Article published on the 2009-01-10 Latest update 2009-01-10 14:51 TU
Chuckie Taylor's father, Charles, on trial in Sierra Leone in 2006.
(Photo: AFP)
A court in the US state of Florida on Friday sentenced "Chuckie" Taylor, the son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, to 97 years in jail for torture relating to atrocities committed when he was head of "anti-terrorist" services under his father between 1997-2003. Charles Tayler Sr is on trial at a UN war crimes court in the Netherlands.
"It is hard to conceive of any more serious offences against the dignity and life of human beings," said Judge Cecilia Altonaga, passing sentence.
She declared that "1,164 months in prison is the appropriate sentence", rejecting a defence call for the sentence to be reduced to 20 years. The prosecution had originally called for a 147-year sentence.
Taylor's mother, Yolanda Emmanuel, says that he will appeal against the sentence.
Witnesses testified that one victim was placed naked in a pit and had fire ants shovelled onto his body, while others said that Taylor used melted plastic, electric shocks, scalding water and beatings with sharp metal rods on his victims.
Charles McArthuer Emmanuel Taylor, known as "Chuckie", is a US citizen, having been born in Boston, Massachusetts.
He was found guilty in October, after being arrested in March 2006 while trying to enter the US from Trinidad.
"I don’t think there’ll be much sympathy for Chuckie Taylor," says analyst Stephen Ellis, who says that in Liberia he is "pretty universally disliked and even despised".
But he told RFI that there is "still quite extensive political support for Charles Taylor Sr" in the country.
Comment: Stephen Ellis, Liberia expert at the Africa Studies Centre at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands
The former President is the first African head-of-state to appear before the international tribunal at The Hague for eleven charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Ellis adds that it is puzzling that Chuckie's is the first case of its kind in the US."I don’t know how this squares with the treatement accorded, for example, to US forces in Iraq," he says.
