Previous Next Latest

American Teen Turned War Criminal Chucky Taylor Sentenced to 97 Years for Torture

1/9/09, 3:28 pm EST

In RS 1061, we published a story, American Warlord, about Chucky Taylor and his journey from average American teenager to accused war criminal. Today, the latest chapter in Taylor’s saga came to an end when a federal judge sentenced him to 97 years in federal prison. Calling the crimes Taylor was convicted of “sadistic, cruel, atrocious acts,” judge Cecilia M. Altonaga handed down the first sentence in American history under a federal anti-torture statute.

Chucky’s father, the deposed dictator of Liberia, Charles Taylor, currently faces trial in the Hague for crimes against humanity. For several years, Chucky served as the head of his father’s notorious security force and became one of most feared men in the war-torn African nation. He had faced 147 years in prison. In closing statements the defense argued that Chucky had been thrust into a barbaric civil war as an adolescent and ” a lot of people were” also committing atrocities. The prosecution alternately cited the “final solution” under Hitler and the Vietnam My Lai massacre to defuse the defense’s arguments that Chucky’s family environment led him to commit acts of horrific violence and advocated for the maximum sentence.

Perhaps, most relevant is that the judge chose to sentence Chucky under much more severe guidelines related to the unlawful detention of the victims. An obscure legal fact, but any hypothetical convictions that arise out of the Bush administration’s rendition program will also take this into account and decide punishment on the basis whether our government legally detained individuals linked to the War on Terror.

Taylor, 31, spoke to the court in khaki prison garb, with a full beard, and tattoos visible on each arm. He did not admit his guilt but called his victims his “African brothers,” and said, “Sorry my brothers to what happened to you during the civil conflict.” Upon hearing his sentencing, Chucky turned to his mother and said, “Stay strong. I love you mama.”

Immediately after the sentencing, a class-action lawsuit was announced by a human rights group on behalf of Chucky’s victims seeking unspecified damages. Agents for Immigration Customs Enforcement are still investigating Chucky for weapons trafficking during the Liberian civil war and since Taylor’s conviction late last year have received hundreds of other leads in potential torture investigations.

To read the full Chucky Taylor story, click here:

American Warlord


Previous Next Latest

Comments

Foday-Sadiku Conteh | 1/10/2009, 10:21 am EST

“ALLAH HU AKBAR”(God is great)

This should serve as a good warning to our african leaders and dictators world wide.”May the souls of our innocent friends rest in perfect peace”.

Anonymous | 1/24/2009, 10:18 am EST

Our democracy is in great peril, corporate pirates have been at the helm. Act accordingly, deliberately, carefully. Our enemy wants us to react violently, irrationally, in order to discredit us, demonize us and justify the use of advanced technologies of destruction upon our nation. RESIST, SUBMIT to peaceful intelligence and the justice of righteousness. Don’t allow them to SUBJECT us to their whims via unfair laws and collusion behind closed doors.

Peace, it’s our enemy’s anathema.
(let the recriminations begin)

Anonymous | 1/24/2009, 10:19 am EST

Those allied against the tenets of freedom manifested their intent to subvert the will of the people a few days into the new administration via it’s two biggest megaphones, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly, unashamedly stating their intent to cause the failure of the new administration so as to advance their own selfish, monopolistic intent, backed up by the full support of the News Organization headed by a foreigner intent on world domination (much reminiscent of the plot of a James Bond movie) and echoed in other organizations by the hostile tone taken to the members of the new administration on the TV screens a scant 4 days after taking office.

What I am saying is, beware my friends. There are those who hate freedom, liberty and the prosperity of others and would reserve such for themselves. By monopolizing industries and making themselves ‘too big to fail’ they have allowed themselves license to steal, enslave and pillage the natural resources of this planet as well as this nation, without concern for the safety or happyness of it’s citizens.

Anonymous | 1/24/2009, 10:20 am EST

In order to remain POPULAR and still enjoy the support of a vocal minority (those making healthy salaries) they instituted tax cuts that drained the treasury and made sure their friends in foreign lands would stand to make millions from the loans necessary to conduct their campaign.
I could go on for days, that is for another forum, another medium, but I think you get my point.

In order to protect ourselves effectively, we must make deliberate, conscious efforts to recognize our true enemy, be it foreign or DOMESTIC and act appropriately, not like immoral heathens who give up the pillars of their democracy for expediency and safety’s sake

Anonymous | 1/24/2009, 10:21 am EST

Today in this country, the leaders of the right wing in the legislature toss about the word TERRORIST to dehumanize, to justify the use of expensive machinery of destruction to SUBMIT those unwilling to allow themselves to be exploited, their natural resources taken from them, their customs and religious sensibilities ridiculed, suppressed, destroyed, caricatured.
This is being done to scare the population into accepting the departure from their moral fiber, their soul if you will, and partaking and justifying the wanton killing of innocents in order to satisfy the unquenchable greed of companies like KBR, Whitewater, McDonald’s, oil industry and all the others who announced before the invasion that those who didn’t SUBMIT to their will would be excluded from their monopoly in Mesopotamia.
They masked their intent under the guise of fear, mushroom clouds, bottles of white powder, and the boogie man of ‘radical Islam’ even though they knew better, thereby making almost a billion people our instant enemy, increasing our exposure to danger rather than reducing it.
They then refused any expenditures to make the homeland strong, choosing instead to put all our money into corporations engaged in an unjust, unnecessary, ill conceived adventure in the desert rather than the difficult mountainous terrain and proximity to the true disseminator of terror.

Anonymous | 1/24/2009, 10:24 am EST

Then they set off a few bombs in busy downtown streets to foment fear and discord among the population, mainly those who had been polarized to either the extreme right or extreme left. I can still remember as a child carefully watching from the roof of our house as pickup trucks full of military personnel rode around shooting their machine guns in the air, occasionally getting out on the streets and running down the block resonating the sound of their boots and shooting in the air at ghosts, anyone who dared peek out and discover their tactics was fingered, their homes ransacked, their possessions destroyed, the men of working age taken away and disappeared.
This was OK to the right wing supporters who were spared, because they were supposedly rooting out the ’specter of communism’, typically the poor and those who would not SUBMIT to control by the oligarchy; the educators and leaders of industry who understood, anyone who dared express themselves freely. Torture houses were set up and the dogs of war, trained in Nazi tactics and depravity allowed free rein to dehumanize and instill fear in the population.

Anonymous | 1/24/2009, 10:25 am EST

Tanks rolled against unarmed civilians and bombs were dropped on the presidential palace on a frenzy of violence that would make Kent State, the ma.ss murder of Russia’s Black Sunday, the Amristar Ma.ssacre, and other such other oppression by the on it’s protectorate seem like a day at the park.
Subsequently, they needed to root out those that would not SUBMIT to their will, those dehumanized by the word communist, which typically consisted of the poor. Therefore they created the sensation of scarcity of resources and jobs, to create the fear of destitution among those with, and greater hardship and desperation on those without. They shut down the economy and made everyone destitute and therefore selfish.

Anonymous | 1/24/2009, 10:29 am EST

Terrorism:
1.the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
2.the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3.a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

Take particular notice of this one… the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
Especially for political purposes.

Anonymous | 1/24/2009, 10:30 am EST

I dislike the way the word terrorists is being tossed about by the extremists in the halls of power and then diffused throughout the collective consciousness by their lemmings. Since they use it so much, let’s analyze it’s meaning and it’s purpose.
Terrorist:
1.a person, usually a member of a group, who uses or advocates terrorism.
2.a person who terrorizes or frightens others.
3.(formerly) a member of a political group in Russia aiming at the demoralization of the government by terror.
4.an agent or partisan of the revolutionary tribunal during the Reign of Terror in France.
–adjective
5.of, pertaining to, or characteristic of terrorism or terrorists: terrorist tactics.

Anonymous | 1/24/2009, 10:32 am EST

(let the recriminations begin)

“I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running round my brain
I guess I’m always hoping that you’ll end this reign
But it’s my destiny to be the king of pain

There’s a king on a throne with his eyes torn out
There’s a blind man looking for a shadow of doubt
There’s a rich man sleeping on a golden bed
There’s a skeleton choking on a crust of bread

King of pain

There’s a red fox torn by a huntman’s pack
There’s a black winged gull with a broken back
There’s a little black spot on the sun today
It’s the same old thing as yesterday

That’s our soul up there”

Sting- King of pain (do you know what it means)

Anonymous | 1/24/2009, 10:33 am EST

A terrorist does what they do to put fear into people’s hearts in order to make them react rather than think deliberately and objectively. It raises the adrenalin and puts one in a constant state of alertness, ready to fight and lash out at the drop of a hat.

Anonymous | 1/24/2009, 10:34 am EST

In Chile this was effectively used by the military regime by inventing an armed insurgency as an excuse to eliminate the political opposition to greed. As the army imposed the political will of those in control of it’s command structure, other external powers gave them the moral, economic and media support it needed to carry out it’s deed unabated by foreign regulators.

Anonymous | 1/24/2009, 10:35 am EST

I was a child when we watched the French built jets fly from the air force base at El Bosque towards downtown to KILL

Anonymous | 1/24/2009, 10:36 am EST

those that put themselves at risk of death by demonstrating in the streets against the military

Anonymous | 1/24/2009, 10:38 am EST

overthrow of the democratically elected

Anonymous | 1/24/2009, 10:39 am EST

government of Salvador Allende.

Post A Comment

Caution: Off-topic comments will be deleted

Name:

Comments:



Advertisement

Advertisement