American Warlord

by Johnny Dwyer

  Underlying the statute was the controversial legal principle of “universal jurisdiction.” Based on the notion that some crimes are so abhorrent to international interests that all states are obligated to prosecute them regardless of borders, nationality, or relation to the crimes, universal jurisdiction wasn’t an entirely new idea. It had been the underpinning for prosecutions of pirates in the nineteenth century, the trials at Nuremberg, and, in recent history, Spain’s warrant that led to the arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998.39 Nonetheless, it remained largely untested in the United States. Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, in an essay in Foreign Policy in 2001, warned that it would “risk substituting the tyranny of judges for that of governments; historically, the dictatorship of the virtuous has often led to inquisitions and even witch-hunts.”40 The U.S. government had not pressed any universal jurisdiction cases, wary of opening American officials to potential prosecution.

  Ragheb reviewed the initial evidence. The allegations typified the scenarios envisioned by the Convention Against Torture. But the identity of the alleged criminal distinguished this case from others. “This guy was a native-born U.S. citizen,” she said. “So all the arguments about universal jurisdiction that had been a concern in people’s minds were thrown out.”

  Baechtle pulled up to the house of the Criminal Division attorney.41 He explained the sequence of events unfolding, the details he’d turned up within his investigation, and his belief that he could build a case against Chucky. The attorney read through the material Baechtle provided and saw how the pieces fit together. Baechtle couldn’t expect the Justice Department to indict Chucky at that moment, but he hoped to get some indication that he was headed down the right road.

  “Yeah,” the attorney told Baechtle. “This looks about right.”

  For the team preparing for Chucky’s arrival back at ICE headquarters, the case looked more than right.

  “It was the perfect case,” Ragheb said.

  15

  Flight

  Possibility of feds rushin on me, it’s vice versa my nigga, when they questioning me, cause we coming.

  —United States vs. Belfast, EXHIBIT CE-9

  Two suitcases and one carry-on bag.1 For all his hopes, plans, and schemes, for all his father’s conquests and ambitions, for all the suffering, humiliation, and pain he’d caused, he was returning home just as empty-handed as he’d left more than a decade earlier—all his belongings stashed in what could easily be loaded into the trunk of a car.

  It was approaching seven p.m. on March 30, 2006. Shortly before sunset, as the 767 dropped below the clouds, Chucky sat among the passengers waiting to land. At that time of day, the black waves of the Atlantic boiled down into the shoreline in long white ripples. As the cabin lights dimmed and a noisy hush set in, Miami’s skyline came into view.

  Chucky hoped to step off of that flight, into this crowd, retrieve his bags, and climb into an old friend’s car for the three-and-half-hour drive north to Orlando. He hoped to disappear from his actions in the past and from the person who had committed them. These hopes weren’t unreasonable. Few Americans knew where Liberia was or what had transpired there during the civil war. Even fewer understood the legacy of suffering that Charles Taylor had left on the region. Only a handful knew that Taylor’s American son bore some role in it. Special Agent Baechtle and his colleagues were among them.

  Chucky, meanwhile, almost hadn’t made it out of Trinidad. Even after obtaining the passport, he faced a more immediate challenge to return to the United States: he had no money for airfare.2 He turned to his few remaining friends in Liberia, according to a former commander, asking for $1,500. It wasn’t the first time he had reached out for help; he seemed perennially broke, having squandered the opportunity to make money while his father was in power. “He was too much involved in this killing and fighting and fighting. He never put in the time to make some money for himself,” commander Sam Nimley said. Eventually a Lebanese friend fronted the cash for Chucky, no questions asked. “We didn’t know he was going to use it for a ticket,” Nimley said.

  Before departing, Chucky had a final piece of unresolved business to attend to. It’s not clear what contact, if any, he had maintained with his father while in Trinidad, but on March 25, as he prepared to leave, he called him in Calabar, Nigeria. Without the protection of Nigeria, it was only a matter of time before UN authorities tracked Charles Taylor down. Taylor warned his son against returning to the United States, his attorney later said, though it’s unlikely the former president had any inkling of the efforts coalescing to detain his son.3 Chucky reminded his father that, regardless of what happened, he had children to take care of. It was strange counsel coming from his son who had neglected his own children. The irony was that it wasn’t his father’s abandonment that had destroyed Chucky’s life but their reconciliation.

  “You’ve lived your life,” Chucky told his father. “Have you provided for all these other people?”4

  The morning of Chucky’s arrival The Washington Post ran a story buried on the sixteenth page with the headline “Liberia’s Taylor Found and Arrested”:

  An immigration official in Gamboru, in northeastern Nigeria, spotted Taylor in a jeep with diplomatic tags that was attempting to cross into Cameroon about 7:30 a.m., according to Nigerian authorities. Under orders from President Obasanjo, who for years had resisted pressure to deliver Taylor to the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Taylor was taken into custody and, in the confines of a sleek green-and-white government jet, flown to Monrovia.5

  With his attempt to escape Nigeria scuttled, Charles Taylor appeared hours later at Robertsfield, draped in a flak jacket, being led down a stairwell from an airliner by an armed guard, his hands cuffed in front of him. Gone was the cool, magisterial expression, with eyes hidden behind Ray-Ban aviators; it was replaced by a look of numb shock. He was returning to Liberia, as he had promised, but with his hands bound, being marched across the tarmac to a UN helicopter waiting to carry him to Freetown. He would be the first African head of state in history to face trial before an international criminal tribunal.

  That morning Special Agent Baechtle put on a pressed suit.6 He typically wore blue jeans and a collared shirt, but he had dressed up for no particular reason. Nearly as soon as he arrived in the office, he turned around and raced to Reagan International to catch a flight to Miami. He had hurriedly assembled his team to leave Washington to meet the flight. One of his ICE colleagues would follow him to deliver the warrant to Miami. Baechtle put a call into the Customs and Border Protection supervisor at Miami International Airport, asking him to meet in the international terminal. As Chucky’s flight taxied to the gate, Baechtle stood at the end of the jetway in the airport’s Concourse D.

  As crowds of vacationers and business travelers streamed past, adrenaline coursed through the agent. All the work of the last two years had coalesced in the prior thirty-six hours. The moment came to seem all but inevitable.

  Yet aspects of it didn’t make sense. For one, why would Chucky risk coming home when he knew federal agents were investigating him? The United States had successfully pressured Liberia and Nigeria to remove their protections of his father, but it was unlikely to make the same efforts with Trinidad. As long as he remained there, he was relatively safe from prosecution; but once he set foot on U.S. soil, everything would change. For the first time in nearly fifteen years, he would face the full force of American law. Baechtle could only wonder “Why?”

  He had spent the prior day on the phone with the regional security officer at the Port of Spain embassy trying to determine whether Chucky had applied for an American passport. That information was privileged; in order for the embassy to pass the lead on to ICE, the Diplomatic Security Service had to open a case on Chucky, which it did almost immediately.

  At the gate, Baechtle watched American Airlines flight 1668 taxi to the jetway.7 Jacques Smith, an antiterrorism officer with Customs and Border Protection, stood a f
ew steps ahead of him. He would be the one to initially detain Chucky. Baechtle made it clear that he did not want Chucky to be handcuffed.

  A banal quote had been on Baechtle’s mind—“Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.”8 It wasn’t something he’d picked up in college or in ICE training, for that matter. This shred of wisdom had hung on the kitchen wall of the Elberon Bathing Club, where he’d worked summers on the Jersey shore flipping burgers and waiting tables. It had stuck with him over the years. Going into Miami, he’d worked through a mental checklist of what he wanted to accomplish, what needed to happen. He’d thought through contingencies and how he’d react to them, preparing for what could be his only shot at speaking to his target one on one.

  Aboard the plane, an announcement alerted the cabin that customs would be checking passports at the gate. Passengers around Chucky readied their documents. The passport he held was virtually untouched. As he filed out of the aircraft with the other passengers into a carpeted hallway, enclosed by panes of glass on each side, Smith, down the hallway, scanned the crowd.9

  Smith let a stream of passengers pass, then stopped a man clutching a single carry-on bag. Baechtle, watching from a remove, caught a glimpse of the man’s face—he looked like a younger version of Charles Taylor.

  There are some people here who’d like to speak with you, Inspector Smith told Chucky, pointing to Baechtle, standing farther down the jetway. The customs officer led him over, holding on to the passport. Another agent took Chucky’s carry-on bag. As they approached, Baechtle presented his badge.

  Would you mind speaking with me? Baechtle asked him, indicating that they could sit privately in an office.

  Chucky agreed. He wasn’t compelled to talk with anyone; at any moment, he could have requested his lawyer and waited out his arrival in silence. For some reason, he did not. As the men walked, they made small talk—chatting about Carnival, which had just passed, and the weather.10 The men stopped at a window marked “Special Services.” Smith handed over Chucky’s passport to be stamped. After nearly twelve years, he had entered the United States.

  The agents led Chucky into a windowless office in the lower level of the terminal. In one corner sat a humming photocopier, at the opposite end a doorway. Special Agent Christopher Malone unlocked a door and led him into a smaller room with two desks and four chairs. Baechtle introduced himself again and explained that he was the agent who had planned on meeting him in Trinidad in 2005.

  Normally customs would cuff you, Baechtle said. But I asked them to waive the policy since in the past you’ve indicated that you’d like to speak.

  Chucky acknowledged the agent’s gesture.

  At the outset, Baechtle wanted to establish a rapport with him as he would any suspect or witness he was interviewing.

  I have to advise you that you are the subject of a federal arrest warrant, Baechtle said. It’s necessary that I advise you of your rights.

  What’s the warrant for? Chucky asked.

  Baechtle referred to the penal code, 18 U.S.C. 1542, making it a crime to make a “false statement in the application and use of passport.”

  “You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can …” Baechtle began. Chucky recited along with him, as any child raised on American television could.

  Do you understand these rights? Baechtle asked.

  I do, Chucky said, asking how long it would take.

  Outside the interrogation room, Inspector Jacques Smith pulled surgical gloves over his hands and opened up Chucky’s bag.11 He removed the notebooks one by one and laid them across a table. He opened one notebook. Page upon page was filled with neat, almost feminine handwriting. A sample of the lines read:

  Just know when we step out killers upon the street, so more out any time of the night, boy watch out. ATU pan da scene. So cool out. ATU niggas on the scene. Body bag is all you see. So tell me what’s it going to be.12

  Farther down the page, it was signed “Charles Taylor II.” He pulled out a book from Chucky’s bag—Guerrilla Strategies—a survey of insurrections around the world written by French theorist Gérard Chaliand.13 The cover displayed Goya’s And There’s Nothing to Be Done, an etching depicting a blindfolded prisoner bound to a pole awaiting execution, the corpse of a comrade at his feet. Inscribed on the inside cover was “Return to G 2 section after reading instruction by GOC” signed “Brigadier Charles McArthur Taylor, II.”

  Inside the interrogation room, Baechtle began questioning Chucky.14

  You were born Charles McArthur Emmanuel on February 2, 1977, at St. Margaret’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, he said.

  Chucky nodded. Baechtle continued through other vital information: his Social Security number, other names he was known by as a student.

  Your mother’s name is Bernice Yolanda Emmanuel? Baechtle asked.

  Correct, he said.

  You indicated on the passport application you filled out in Trinidad that your father’s name is Steven Daniel Smith. Is that correct? Baechtle asked.

  I think it’s one of the names my pops used, Chucky responded.

  Did he go by any other names? Baechtle asked.

  Charles McArthur Taylor, he replied.

  The former president of Liberia? Baechtle asked.

  Chucky congratulated the agent. “You’re making a jump.”

  Chucky had done what little he could to conceal his connection to his father. But the measure he took, providing the false name “Steven Daniel Smith,” instead provided ICE with a valuable break: this seemingly minor obfuscation was a felony under federal law. Baechtle now had a charge to detain Chucky on: passport fraud. The crime carried a maximum sentence of twenty years in prison, though it was unlikely he would receive that much time. Chucky could be arraigned on that charge and, given his history fleeing criminal charges, held as a flight risk until trial. This sort of administrative charge had been used in recent years on a variety of cases against drug traffickers, fugitive murderers, and outlaw radicals, like a former member of the Symbionese Liberation Army. For Baechtle and his colleagues at ICE, it provided a good starting point—but they were after much more.

  As the evening dragged on, Chucky spoke with a sort of detached confidence. When the two men sat down, Baechtle had planned to work chronologically, covering the timeline of his suspect’s life, then circling back to events he wanted more details on. Chucky wasn’t self-conscious or evasive about the milestones of his past: his reunion with his father in 1992, his return to West Africa two years later, the fighting of April 6, his father’s election. Baechtle knew this story line, but as soon as he began asking about Charles Taylor’s security apparatus, Chucky distanced himself.

  Were you a member of the Executive Mansion Special Security Unit? the agent asked.

  No, Chucky replied.

  Were you the head of any unit? Baechtle asked.

  No, he responded, but I was privy to their activities.

  Do you know what the initials ATU stand for? Baechtle asked him.

  Anti-Terrorist Unit, Chucky said.

  Did you command the ATU? Baechtle asked.

  No, Chucky responded. I had an advisory role.

  It quickly became clear that this federal agent had more than superficial knowledge of the ATU—his questions suggested knowledge of information that couldn’t easily be gleaned on the Internet or from reports published by Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch. The information suggested that Baechtle had had direct contact with individuals familiar with the unit. His questions had started broadly, but as the interrogation continued, he winnowed down to particulars. Who constructed Gbatala base? Did you have ATU bodyguards? Who commanded those bodyguards?

  Chucky initially equivocated about his involvement. But Baechtle’s questions quickly cut through his efforts to obscure the past. Eventually Chucky admitted that the ATU was his “pet project.” Yes, he had helped build the base, and, yes, he had provided support.

  Baechtle circled in on two incidents that had r
eceived wide press coverage in Liberia: the death of the little girl who had been run over by Chucky’s truck and the murder of Isaac Gono.

  These were unfortunate incidents, Chucky said, but the deaths were accidental. The responsibility for both fell on his driver and his bodyguards, not on him. His bodyguards could be overzealous at times, he said.

  Baechtle switched tacks and focused on Chucky’s role with the “pet project.”

  You had the ability to order people to be arrested and detained, he said. You took command functions such as arranging for food and clothes and fuel to be brought to this base. You helped build this base, and you say you were not a commander?

  No, Chucky maintained.

  The thrust of Baechtle’s questions became apparent: had Chucky been involved in human rights abuses in Liberia? Chucky readily denied that he had ever served on the front lines during the fighting, had ever beaten or shot anyone or witnessed the death of any person. Nor, he said, had he tortured or ordered the torture of anyone.

  What’s the worst behavior you saw by the ATU? Baechtle asked.

  I saw someone slapped with an open hand, he replied.

  Going into the interview, Baechtle had sensed that Chucky would talk, but after several hours, the man had yet to refuse to answer a single question. Instead, he chose to directly deny allegations and talk around certain issues—the command history of the ATU, for example. Then Baechtle would follow up with a detailed question, making it clear that ICE already had independent knowledge of the subject.

  Eventually, after Baechtle pressed him on human rights abuses, Chucky offered something up. Now I know what you must be referring to, he said. That incident with that “press guy.”

  Chucky recounted a situation where he had been present for something violent: a prisoner had been beaten and burned with an iron. I did not take part in any beating or torture, Chucky insisted.