[ppi] [ppiindia] Liberian Seized to Stand Trial on War Crimes

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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/30/international/africa/30liberia.html?_r=1&oref=slogin



Liberian Seized to Stand Trial on War Crimes 

By LYDIA POLGREEN
Published: March 30, 2006
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone, March 29 - Charles G. Taylor, the warlord who became 
Liberia's president, was captured Wednesday after a dramatic 24 hours in which 
he disappeared from the villa in Nigeria where he had lived in exile and then 
was recognized at a remote outpost as he tried to leave the country. 

 
Michael Kamber for The New York Times
Charles Taylor, on steps, ex-president of Liberia, arriving Wednesday in Sierra 
Leone after being caught in Nigeria while fleeing war crimes charges. 

 
  
Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria 
Video Report 
Enlarge This Image
 
European Pressphoto Agency
Charles G. Taylor as he was led off a Nigerian plane yesterday in Monrovia, 
Liberia, his first stop en route to a jail cell in Sierra Leone. 

He was brought here to face war crimes charges for his role in a brutal 
decade-long civil war in Sierra Leone, one of a series of conflagrations that 
he set off, killing at least 300,000 people. He is the first African head of 
state to face such charges in an international court.

Mr. Taylor's arrival by helicopter under extraordinary security capped a saga 
that began nearly three years ago, when he fled his nation in the face of a 
rebel onslaught. He was captured Wednesday morning after a customs official 
recognized him as he tried to escape into Cameroon. 

He arrived unshaven and dressed in a white tunic covered by a bullet-proof 
vest, tan pants and slip-on shoes. His appearance was in stark contrast to his 
dapper look in his last public appearance, in 2003, when he went into exile 
after a 14-year civil war that killed a quarter million of his countrymen, 
defiantly declaring, "God willing, I will be back." 

He did return to Liberia, briefly, on Wednesday, but only to be handed over to 
United Nations troops who promptly flew him here, where he was read the 
indictment from a United Nations-backed court dealing with war crimes in Sierra 
Leone - 11 counts of crimes against humanity - then jailed. 

Desmond de Silva, the prosecutor who will try the case, said Mr. Taylor's 
arrival "sends out the clear message that no matter how rich, powerful or 
feared people may be, the law is above them." 

The trial is sure to resonate on a continent where dictators have ruled with 
ruthless impunity. From Idi Amin, the soldier whose murderous rule in Uganda 
gave way to comfortable exile in Saudi Arabia, to Haile Mengistu Mariam, whose 
14-year Communist rule in Ethiopia brought political purges that killed more 
than a million people but who is now living quietly in Zimbabwe, African 
leaders who brutalize their citizens have faced few consequences. 

"The current perpetrators of serious human rights crimes should be put on 
notice that international courts take the crimes they commit very, very 
seriously," said Corinne Dufka of Human Rights Watch. 

Mr. Taylor's arrival here was a dramatic turn in the already complicated saga 
of the effort to bring him to justice after he ignited a series of civil wars 
in the 1990's that engulfed much of West Africa.

In the early 1980's, Mr. Taylor was a senior government procurement officer in 
Liberia. Charged in 1983 with embezzling nearly $1 million, he fled. He was 
arrested in Massachusetts in 1984, then escaped from jail in 1985. He 
resurfaced in Liberia in 1989 as a Libyan-trained warlord, leading a rebel 
force. He was elected president in 1997, in a vote overshadowed by fears of 
what might happen if he lost. 

A warrant for his arrest was issued in March 2003. But as part of an agreement 
to remove him from power and halt a bloodbath in Liberia, Nigeria offered him 
asylum and refused to hand him over to the court in Sierra Leone, where he was 
accused of fomenting a civil war. 

Though under intense pressure by the United States to arrest him, President 
Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria had insisted he would hand over Mr. Taylor only to 
an elected Liberian government. Earlier this month, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, 
Liberia's new president, herself facing pressure from the United States, made 
the request, and Mr. Obasanjo agreed. 

But Nigeria insisted that it was Liberia's responsibility to go and arrest him, 
with Mr. Obasanjo's spokeswoman declaring that Mr. Taylor was "not a prisoner," 
which seemed almost to taunt Mr. Taylor into trying to escape from his lightly 
guarded compound in Calabar. 

Late Monday night the Nigerian government said he had vanished. He was found 
more than 600 miles north, in an ash-colored Land Rover with a large quantity 
of dollars, in the company of a woman and a driver, Haz Iwendi, a spokesman for 
the National Police, said by telephone. 

A customs official spotted Mr. Taylor, whose vehicle had diplomatic license 
plates, early Wednesday morning in the border town of Ngala, Mr. Iwendi said.

Katharine Houreld contributed reporting from Monrovia for this article, and 
Steven R. Weisman from Washington.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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