A New Jersey postal worker who took pictures of a high-security compound on a visit to Sierra Leone has been charged with spying – and hatching a scheme to spring ex-Liberian President Charles Taylor who is jailed there for alleged war crimes.
Prosecutors in Freetown claim Michael Chemidlin, 58, snapped photos of the Special Court for Sierra Leone last month in a plot to free Taylor.
Taylor faces charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for allegedly backing Sierra Leonean rebels who terrorized victims by hacking off their arms, legs, ears and lips during that nation’s civil war.
In Scotch Plains where Chemidlin lives, relatives of the former U.S. soldier, a father of three sons, can’t believe what’s happening to him.
“I don’t think my father even knows who he [Taylor] is,” said son Mark, 26. “This whole thing has been blown way out of proportion.”
Chemidlin was released yesterday on $8,000 bail, but is not allowed to leave the country.
“I talked to my dad for the first time,” his son said. “He’s OK, but he told me he was going to the hospital. He’s not feeling great. His hopes are high and he just wants to come home.”
Chemidlin’s family says the Vietnam vet, an Army National Guard staff sergeant who served in Iraq for 10 months last year, is very religious and the self-styled missionary went to Africa for a month to proselytize.
Next Tuesday a judge will decide if there is enough evidence to throw Chemidlin back in jail on espionage charges, for which he faces 15 years in prison.
With Post Wire Services