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Taylor quits Sierra Leone for Hague war crimes trial

Posted on: Tuesday, 20 June 2006, 09:57 CDT

By Christo Johnson

FREETOWN (Reuters) - War crimes court officials flew former Liberian President Charles Taylor out of Sierra Leone on a charter jet on Tuesday bound for trial at The Hague.

Taylor faces 11 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for backing Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front rebels whose drugged child soldiers killed, mutilated and raped civilians during the West African country's 1990s civil war.

Taylor was flown in a U.N. helicopter to the country's main airport at Lungi from the compound of the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, which has charged him with war crimes and will conduct his trial in The Hague.

"He's in a plane headed for the Netherlands. He left Lungi International Airport at 9:40 this morning," said court spokesman Peter Andersen.

"I talked to Mr Taylor briefly. We didn't discuss his case, we joked around a little bit and I wished him a safe journey," Andersen said.

Asked about Taylor's mood, he said: "It's difficult to tell -- he looked very serious."

The Freetown-based court said its registrar, security chief and medical officer had accompanied Taylor on the flight.

The Dutch Foreign Ministry said Taylor would be held at the detention unit of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Scheveningen.

"This means that the focus can now be on the trial against Taylor, who is accused of serious war crimes," Foreign Minister Ben Bot said in a statement.

"This is a signal from the international community that exemption from punishment will not be tolerated," Bot added.

MIXED REACTIONS

Sierra Leone's Vice-President Solomon Berewa welcomed the news.

"We are now satisfied that he is going to be tried in a well secured area by the Netherlands while we in Sierra Leone and the Mano River Union states will continue to consolidate our peace," Berewa told Reuters.

The Mano River Union groups Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, which were all dragged into a spiral of violence in the 14 years after Taylor began Liberia's civil war in 1989.

"All I think Sierra Leoneans were interested in was to see Taylor arrested and charged, which has been done," Berewa added.

But Taylor's half-brother Adolphus Taylor was disappointed.

"We are downhearted. They had told us that Mr Taylor will be transferred on Wednesday but instead they transferred him today. We just don't know what's happening. We do not know whether he will get a fair trial," he told Reuters in Monrovia.

Years of war in Liberia finally came to an end after Taylor agreed to go into exile in Nigeria in 2003.

Caught trying to leave Nigeria earlier this year as pressure mounted for him to be tried, Taylor was transferred to the Special Court and charged.

But Liberia's President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf expressed concerns that Taylor's presence in the region could encourage instability in Liberia, where he retains some support.

The Netherlands agreed to host the trial after Britain promised last week to hold Taylor in jail if he received a prison sentence.

Court spokesman Anderson said defense and prosecution lawyers would still hold a pre-trial meeting already organized for Wednesday in Freetown, although he could not say when Taylor would appear in court in The Hague.

(Additional reporting by Nicola Leske in Amsterdam and Alphonso Toweh in Bo Waterside, Liberia)

Source: REUTERS

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