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Courtroom Next Stop for Taylor

Posted on: Thursday, 30 March 2006, 15:00 CST

By Clarence Roy-Macaulay Associated Press

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone -- The two white U.N. troop transport helicopters carrying their prize -- a manacled former African leader -- circled down out of the west African skies to land inside the heavily guarded compound of an international war-crimes tribunal.

Ex-Liberian President Charles Taylor, looking chastened after hours in the skies over the region ruined by wars he stoked, was escorted to jail by U.N. peacekeeping troops from Mongolia.

Taylor's foiled escape from Nigeria with sackloads of cash and his transfer to the U.N.-backed Sierra Leone court that has indicted him on 17 counts of crimes against humanity for supporting brutal rebels here is a watershed moment for the tribunal and also for West Africa, a region long shaken by Taylor's warmongering.

"Today is a momentous occasion, an important day for international justice, the international community, and above all the people of Sierra Leone," said Desmond de Silva, chief prosecutor of the tribunal called the Special Court.

"His presence in the custody of the Special Court sends out the clear message that no matter how rich, powerful or feared people may be, the law is above them."

De Silva said Taylor had been read his arrest warrant and would make his first court appearance by the end of this week.

U.N. peacekeepers from Mongolia escorted Taylor, in handcuffs and looking dejected, behind the razor-wired gate blocking the holding penitentiary where he joined nine other defendants, all charged like Taylor with crimes committed during Sierra Leone's brutal 1989-2002 civil war.

Taylor, a bombastic speaker during his time in the bush and as Liberia's president, made no comment.

Taylor is charged with 17 counts of crimes against humanity stemming from his support of the Revolutionary United Front rebels that terrorized the civilian population here for years, chopping off the arms, legs, ears and lips of their victims.

The court began trials in 2004, but Taylor is their highest- profile defendant and the first African head of state to face war- crimes charges in an international court.

U.S. officials said Wednesday that Washington is seeking to move the war crimes trial of Taylor from Sierra Leone to the Netherlands for security reasons.

Taylor landed in a U.N. helicopter that had shuttled him to Sierra Leone from his native Liberia, where Nigeria had deported him earlier after capturing him trying to flee the country that had hosted him in exile since he stepped down amid a rebel attack in 2003.

Police caught him earlier in northern Nigeria, wearing a safari suit and carrying sacks full of dollars and euros in his car, which bore diplomatic plates. He was captured nearly 600 miles from the villa in southern Calabar where he lived in exile and from which he reportedly disappeared Monday night.

Nigeria on Tuesday announced that Taylor had left his home in exile in the southeastern part of the country, shamefacedly admitting that his whereabouts were unknown on the eve of Nigerian President Oluesgun Obasanjo's state visit to the United States, where he met President Bush. Bush congratulated Obasanjo Wednesday.

"The fact that Charles Taylor will be brought to justice in a court of law will help Liberia and is a signal, Mr. President, of your deep desire for there to be peace in your neighborhood," Bush said.

Nigeria had granted asylum to the fast-talking, U.S.-educated economist under a 2003 agreement that helped end Liberia's 14-year civil war.

Nigeria briefly resisted calls from the United States, human rights organizations and the war tribunal in Sierra Leone for authorities to arrest Taylor, who escaped from a U.S. jail in Boston in 1985 -- to ensure he would stand trial.

Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf had said Liberia wants Taylor sent to Sierra Leone to stand trial, not to Liberia, where it was feared his presence could destabilize an already fragile country taking its first steps toward rebuilding since the new leader was installed in January.

Many people in Sierra Leone also fear his presence there and statements he makes in court could inflame tensions both in their country and across West Africa.

Some 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers are in Liberia and the last U.N. soldier of what was once 17,500-strong force left Sierra Leone in December. Another 10,000-strong U.N. and French peace force remains in Ivory Coast, where many former child soldiers that fought for Taylor are now believed embroiled in that conflict.

While the Sierra Leone tribunal's charges refer only to the war there, Taylor also has been accused of backing rebel fighters elsewhere in West Africa and of harboring al-Qaida suicide bombers who attacked the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, killing more than 200 people.

"I think his capture and being put on trial does not only close a chapter but it also sends a powerful message to the region that impunity will not be allowed to stand and would-be warlords will pay a price," said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said at U.N. headquarters in New York.

Source: Deseret News (Salt Lake City)

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