Facing multimillion-dollar lawsuit, President Taylor’s son rejects Liberians’ torture claims

Taylor’s son rejects Liberians’ torture claims

MIAMI — The son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor on Friday rejected as “propaganda” claims by Liberians and the U.S. government that he oversaw widespread torture and human rights abuses while head of an elite paramilitary unit in his father’s government.

Charles McArthur Emmanuel, also known as Charles “Chuckie” Taylor Jr., said in a closing statement in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed by five Liberian torture victims that very little corroboration exists to back up their allegations — even though he was convicted of torture in a U.S. criminal trial and sentenced to 97 years in prison.

“This is all very questionable,” said Emmanuel, acting as his own lawyer in the civil case. “This notion that I’m this human rights abuser, this poster boy for human rights abuse, is deceptive and propaganda.”

Emmanuel, 32, also insisted that he has no money or assets if the five Liberians win judgments that could easily total millions of dollars each. Lawyers for the Liberians have suggested that Emmanuel and his father have numerous overseas accounts and as well as access to diamonds that could satisfy such a ruling.

“I am not attached to President Taylor’s assets or any accounts that he has. We are totally separate,” said Emmanuel, a U.S. citizen born in Boston while Taylor was a college student there in 1977.

U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan, who previously issued a judgment against Emmanuel in the lawsuit, said he would determine the issue of damages against by the end of February.

The five Liberians suffer lasting physical and emotional scars from their torture, which included being held in filthy pits of chest-high water, suffering sexual abuse, being shocked with electric devices and having their genitals mutilated, according to testimony and court documents. Such acts and worse, including murder, were typical of the Antiterrorist Unit known as the “demon forces” that Emmanuel commanded after joining his father in Liberia in 1997.

In his statement Friday, Emmanuel said Liberia’s bloody civil conflict was “terrible and unfortunate” for people on all sides.

“No family was spared from tragedy. We were all affected,” he said.

Emmanuel’s criminal prosecution was the first and only under a 1994 law allowing U.S. prosecution for torture and atrocities committed overseas. Emmanuel was tried in Miami because he was arrested here in 2006 for a passport violation.

The five Liberians who filed the lawsuit are represented by the Human Rights USA organization. One of their attorneys, Troy Elder, told the judge it was important to order Emmanuel to pay a significant amount of money to the victims and send a signal to West Africa and the world that torture cannot be tolerated.

“We’re here for a trial on damages. We heard from some severely damaged people in this case,” Elder said.

Former President Taylor is being tried before a United Nations tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for allegedly overseeing murder, rape and mutilation of thousand of people during neighboring Sierra Leone’s 10-year civil war.