A War-Crimes Trial in Florida (Time)

[struggle4progress]

By Johnny Dwyer
Miami
Friday, Oct. 03, 2008

Monday morning, Chucky Taylor stepped into a federal courtroom wearing a gray blazer and black slacks, looking more like a museum security guard than an accused war criminal. But his trial on torture charges that opened this week will test a never before invoked federal law criminalizing torture, a statute that the Bush Administration examined closely to ensure CIA agents and other civilians involved in the War on Terrorism would not be exposed to prosecution.

"Crimes such as these will not go unanswered," said Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher when the indictment was announced in December 2006. The Liberian government has not commented on the prosecution but has deferred to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia the accounting for crimes committed during the 14-year civil war. Human-rights groups view the prosecution as a shift toward greater accountability for human-rights violators who enter the United States.

Taylor, also known as Charles Emmanuel, is the 31-year-old American son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, currently behind bars in the Hague, where he faces 11 counts of crimes against humanity before a U.N.-sponsored court. Born in Boston and raised in the suburban sprawl of Orlando, Fla., Taylor Jr. moved to Liberia as a teen and allegedly commanded the militia called the Anti-Terrorist Unit, also known as the "Demon Forces."

The trial, which Taylor's attorneys expect to last another seven weeks, is the first prosecution under the Extraterritorial Torture statute, a 14-year-old law dusted off by the Department of Justice to prosecute Taylor. It is also a unique experiment in international justice: all of the crimes of which Taylor stands accused — summarily executing people, ordering beheadings, forcible sodomy, the slashing and electrocution of genitals — were committed in far-off Liberia, in the midst of a bizarre and brutal region-wide conflict ...

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1847207,00.html