A Boston man, the head of an elite Anti Terrorist Unit, has become the first person ever charged by the US Department of Justice with committing torture abroad. Charles "Chuckie" Taylor is being held in Miami. Surprised? Didn't think the US would move against one of its own citizens for flagrant human rights abuses and war crimes even though there has been a federal law (18 USC sections 2340A and 2441) that allows them to be charged in the US? After all, no one has ever been charged before.
Of course, there are some special circumstances here. Chuckie Taylor is the son of Liberia's deposed president Charles Taylor, himself now on trial in a UN backed Special Court in Sierra Leone.
Chuckie Taylor led the elite Anti-Terrorist Unit (ATU) from approximately 1997 through at least 2002 when information suggests that the unit committed torture, including various violent assaults, rape, beating people to death and burning civilians alive. Information collected by Human Rights Watch suggests that the ATU, a pro-government military unit, also committed war crimes during Liberia's armed conflict from 1999 to 2003. In the years that Chuckie Taylor headed the unit, these war crimes included extrajudicial killing of civilians and prisoners, rape and other torture, abduction, and the recruitment of child soldiers.
[snip]
"Enforcement of federal laws on torture committed abroad is long overdue," said Keppler. "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."
In May, the United Nations Committee Against Torture expressed concern about the lack of prosecutions under the US federal torture statute. (Human Rights Watch)
So the Justice Department was goaded into it. Taylor was already in custody on passport violation charges in Miami, so ignoring the abundant open source material submitted to the Department by Human Rights Watch was a bit awkward.
This all makes for interesting speculation. If American citizens can be charged with torture and war crimes, what might the future hold for some of today's Iraq War principals?
Oops. Sorry. I think I was dreaming.
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Well it aint all bad Revere. Charles was also a conflict diamond runner, along with dear old dad and some 200 million in unaccounted for pounds is still out there somewhere. Chuckie served his purpose and now the question is whether he is going to commit suicide or not.
When you need torture, you hire it done with plausible deniability of course. Me, I wouldnt hesitate to beat the living snot out of someone to stop a WTC or an airliner going in. But from what I know from the late 80's all the way up to mid-90's I think he enjoyed his work.