Charles Taylor Jr. was arrested in the Florida, U.S.A. hours after his father Charles McArthur Ghankay Taylor was arrested along the Nigerian-Cameroon border and whisked off to Sierra Leone for trial. ‘Chuckie’, as he is known by admirer, was arrested by U.S. immigration officials allegedly for giving conflicting information in order to obtain an American passport.

Some who dismissed the arrest as trivial thought it was a matter of weeks before he is a free man, but a Liberian human rights group based in the United States has launched a campaign that will plant ‘Chuckie’s’ feet deeper into the quicksand.

The Analyst Staff Writer has been looking at a FrontPageAfrica account of the group’s contentions. If the wishes of the Liberian Human Rights and Refugee Welfare Organization-LIHRRWO are granted, Chuckie Taylor is in for a deeper trouble than he had bargained for, The Analyst has learnt.

LIHRRWO, which is based in Minnesota, early Monday notified US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales through a letter asking the Justice Department to hold Chuckie for more investigation unrelated the passport fraud for which he was arrested and detained.

In a subsequent press release the group revealed that it has dispatched letters to the Director of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Emilo Gonzales, and Department of Homeland Security Bureau of Justice Assistance through Secretary Michael Chertoff requesting the prolonged detention of Chuckie Taylor.

According to the group, Charles Taylor, Jr. needed to be kept in detention so that he would be questioned about his role in the abuse of human rights when he served as commander of the Anti-Terrorist Unit (ATU) in Liberia between 1998 and 2003.

The organization informed top US officials responsible for immigration that Chuckie Taylor must be treated like John Walker Lindh, a US citizen who had been detained for his connection with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

It did not say why the connection between Lindh and Taylor Jr. was appropriate, but indicated that the younger Taylor’s detention and investigation may reveal details of the mayhem that wrecked the foundation of Liberia since 1990.

According to the LIHRRWO, they have received reports from Monrovia that Chuckie, a US citizen was in closed connection with Arabs suspected to be Al Qaeda members that were in diamond deals with his father, Charles Taylor, who has been charged for war crimes and other crimes against humanity.

• A fighter shows a pistol

The criminal complaint filed by U.S. immigration authorities reveals that he has been under extensive investigation in the United States, Europe, Africa and the Caribbean.  

 Among the people interviewed in connection with the conflicting information given in order to obtain U.S. passport were his mother, Bernice Yolanda Emmanuel, and his Trinidadian-born stepfather, Roy Belfast.

It may be recalled that last week, Charles Taylor, Jr., who presented as “Charles McArthur Emmanuel” was stopped at Miami International Airport for making a ''false statement'' in an effort to get a passport.

The 29-year-old has been banned by the United Nations, which is leading a 15,000-strong peacekeeping force in Liberia, from traveling to the West African nation. The younger Taylor was arrested Thursday night after arriving from Trinidad. Two days earlier, his father was flown to Sierra Leone to face an international court.

When the father, Charles Ghankay Taylor became president in 1997 in an election which many contended was widely rigged, he appointed his son head of his elite presidential security force, the Anti-Terrorist Unit, Bernice Emmanuel told investigators.

“As head of the ATU, Emmanuel was responsible for training soldiers to serve on that force,” the complaint said. A 2001 report by Amnesty International, a human rights group, documented cases of Liberians arbitrarily detained, tortured, and raped by the ATU.

The report also accused it of torture and of targeting politicians, journalists and students during its reign of terror. Taylor Jr. was scheduled to go before a U.S. District Court judge at 10 a.m. yesterday, according to the court records.

LIHRRWO said it would use the US Tort Act to bring a lawsuit against Chuckie Taylor in the US for his involvement in the death of Liberians when he served as “head of his father killing squad, the so-called Anti-Terrorist Unit (ATU).”

The letters sent to the US immigration officials indicated that Chuckie Taylor must be detained and investigated also as a suspected terrorist. According to LIHRRWO, Chuckie was seen distributing Bin Laden T-shirts immediately after 9-11, while his car license plate read "Osama".

The group also claimed that Chuckie was on many occasions seen and heard glorifying the Al Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden after 9-11. The human rights organization also declared that it will issue independent lawsuit against certain Liberian legislators for their participation and killing during the 14 years of civil war.

The LIHRRWO says it will file the lawsuit against these legislators if the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) let them go with impunity. The organization’s executive director, Kirkpatrick Weah, says no war criminal will hide behind his or her legislative position. 

He named former warlord-turn-speaker George Dweh and leaders of the erstwhile warring factions as individuals who must be taken to Sierra Leone or fully investigated by the TRC. He noted that reconciliation would be a wishful thinking if these warmongers continue to run up and down in the Senate, the House of Representatives and in the streets of Liberia.

He added that as Chuckie’s father Charles Taylor faces war crime charges so should the rest. It is not clear whether the Liberian human rights group is aware of the restraining power of the CPA provision that forbids the criminal trial of Liberians for roles they may have played during the war.