Son of Liberian warlord faces torture trial in Miami

MIAMI (Reuters) - The son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor went on trial in Miami on Wednesday in the first test of a 14-year-old U.S. law allowing the prosecution of citizens for acts of torture committed abroad.

Jury selection began in the case against Charles "Chuckie" Taylor Jr., who is accused of taking part in summary executions and brutal torture that included burning victims with a hot iron and scalding water, shocking their genitals and rubbing salt into wounds.

His father, Charles Taylor, once one of Africa's most feared warlords, is on trial in The Hague for suspected war crimes during the civil war in Liberia's neighbor, Sierra Leone.

The younger Taylor was born Charles Emmanuel, changed his name legally to Roy Belfast Jr. in 1990 and is commonly referred to by his nickname Chuckie Taylor.

He was indicted by a U.S. grand jury on eight charges, including five counts of torture, that carry a maximum penalty of life in prison. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which cover alleged acts taking place from 1999 to 2003.

"Chuckie Taylor's trial for torture is hugely important for victims in Liberia," Elise Keppler, a lawyer with Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. "This is one of the few prosecutions to date for atrocities committed during Liberia's wars."

While human rights groups have lauded the U.S. prosecution of Chuckie Taylor, they question whether Washington will ever hold its own officials accountable.

Human Rights Watch said it has urged that senior U.S. officials such as former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and ex-CIA Director George Tenet be investigated for potential liability in war crimes and torture.

Chuckie Taylor, who was born in Boston, was arrested at Miami International Airport in 2006 and pleaded guilty to a charge of lying about his father's identity on a passport application.

He was later indicted for alleged actions when he was the commander of a paramilitary security force called the Antiterrorist Unit (ATU) -- commonly known as the "Demon Forces" -- that protected the elder Taylor while he was president of Liberia.

The younger Taylor and his soldiers are accused of torturing captives by burning them with cigarettes, dripping molten wax or plastic on them and confining them naked in pits covered with iron bars and shoveling stinging ants on them.

In one incident, the indictment alleges that Taylor stopped a group of suspected rebels near a checkpoint at the St. Paul River bridge at Gbalatuah, Liberia, picked out three people and "summarily shot them in front of others in the group."

At an ATU base in Gbatala, the indictment said, Taylor ordered his soldiers to cut off a captive's head. They held the victim's head over a bucket and severed it by slitting his throat from back to front after he begged for his life, it said.

The indictment alleges one of Taylor's co-conspirators sodomized and shocked a captive with an electrical device.

Chuckie Taylor was the first person charged under a law passed in 1994 known as the extraterritorial torture statute, which allows prosecutors to charge a U.S. citizen or someone present in the United States with acts of torture or conspiracy to torture outside the country.

The trial was expected to last up to two months.

(Editing by Jane Sutton and David Wiessler)