MIAMI - The son of former Liberian president Charles Taylor will serve 97 years in prison for torture after being convicted in the first case under a U.S. law against atrocities overseas.
A federal judge in Miami imposed the sentence Friday on 31-year-old Charles McArthur Emmanuel, who headed a paramilitary unit that tortured and killed people in the West African country during his father's presidency.
Emmanuel is a U.S. citizen and was convicted in October in the first use of a 1994 law permitting prosecution in the United States for torture committed in foreign countries.
Prosecutors had asked for a 147-year sentence, while defence lawyers sought leniency.
The elder Taylor is on trial before a United Nations tribunal for crimes allegedly committed during the Sierra Leone civil war.
