Former Liberian President to face war crimes

Charles Taylor

LAGOS - Nigeria will transfer former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who is living in exile in Nigeria and has been indicted for war crimes, to Liberian custody, the Nigerian government has confirmed.

The former warlord is seen as the mastermind behind once intertwined civil wars in Liberia and neighbouring Sierra Leone, where a special UN-backed court wants to try him for supporting brutal rebels in exchange for diamonds.

"President Olusegun Obasanjo has today ... informed President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf that the government of Liberia is free to take former President Charles Taylor into its custody," the Nigerian government said in a statement.

Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia's first post-war president who took office in January, had asked Nigeria to consider handing over Taylor so he could stand trial at the Sierra Leone court.

Johnson-Sirleaf made no public comment after arriving home on Saturday from the United States, whose government has campaigned vociferously for Taylor to stand trial. A Liberian official said there was no indication yet of when Taylor might be transferred.

Taylor's departure was part of a peace deal to end 14 years of civil war in Liberia which killed 250,000 people, spawned a generation of young gunmen and spread violence to nearby states.

"It is a remarkable day for the Special Court and it is a defining day in international criminal justice," said Desmond de Silva, chief prosecutor at the court in Sierra Leone.

"It will take a little time, two to three days; I would hope no longer than that," he said of Taylor's transfer to the court.

MANY FEAR IT WILL REOPEN WOUNDS

Many in Liberia and Sierra Leone fear that Taylor's return could reopen old wounds, undermining a fragile peace.

Liberian security forces arrested around a dozen Taylor associates on Friday including former bodyguards and fighters.

A senior member of Taylor's National Patriotic Party (NPP) said the arrests were linked to widespread speculation in Monrovia that Taylor supporters may try to stage a coup.

Taylor's spiritual adviser Kilari Anand Paul, who has been campaigning against his return on the grounds that it could spark renewed killing, said Taylor told him that his supporters would try to assassinate Johnson-Sirleaf.

"Taylor told me that Johnson will be killed. He said he has thousands of forces on the ground and if he is extradited they cannot be controlled," Paul told Reuters from Ethiopia, where he is trying to negotiate an extended asylum for Taylor.

Taylor stands accused of supporting rebels notorious for hacking off the limbs of civilians during Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 civil war, which cost an estimated 50,000 lives.

The international rights group Human Rights Watch welcomed Nigeria's decision.

"This is a great day for justice, not only for the victims of Sierra Leone's brutal war but also for the fight against impunity, which has devastated so many lives in West Africa," said Corinne Dufka, head of the group's West African section.

Taylor's spokesman in Nigeria said African leaders who brokered the 2003 deal under which Taylor stepped down and went into exile had agreed he could not be handed over to the court.

"African leaders cannot afford to renege on that agreement. They cannot afford to give Western governments a carte blanche to terminate African governments," Sylvester Paasewe said.

"There are many African leaders whose countries have a conflict situation, like Sudan, Uganda, Congo ... They may no longer have faith in an African solution and they may not agree to step down voluntarily as President Taylor did," he said.

Taylor lives in a riverside villa in the southeastern Nigerian city of Calabar, which is normally watched by armed guards. On Monday journalists including a Reuters correspondent entered the villa without any security or identity checks and met Taylor.

Airport sources in Calabar said about 20 members of his family and close circle had left, carrying an unusually large amount of luggage, since Johnson-Sirleaf's request to Nigeria became public.

- REUTERS