Family
In 1997, Taylor married Jewel Taylor, with whom he has one son. She filed for divorce in 2005, citing her husband's exile in Nigeria and the difficulty of visiting him due to a UN travel ban on her. The divorce was granted in 2006. Jewel Taylor currently serves as the senior senator from Bong County.
Phillip Taylor, Taylor's son with Jewel, remained in Liberia following his father's extradition to the SCSL. He was arrested by Liberian police officials on 5 March 2011 and charged with attempted murder in connection with an assault on the son of an immigration officer who had assisted in Charles Taylor's extradition. At the time of his arrest, he had been attempting to cross the border into Côte d'Ivoire.
Taylor has another son, a U.S. citizen named Charles McArther Emmanuel, born to his college girlfriend. Emmanuel was arrested in 2006 after entering the US and was charged with three counts, including participation in torture while serving in the Anti-Terrorist Unit in Liberia during his father's presidency. The law that prosecuted Taylor was put in place in 1994, before "extraordinary rendition" in an attempt to prevent US citizens from committing acts of torture overseas. To date, this is the only prosecuted case. In October 2008, Emmanuel was convicted on all three counts and sentenced to 97 years in prison.
Read more about this topic: Charles Taylor (Liberian Politician)
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