Former Liberian leader flown out of Sierra Leone; UN welcomes tran Liberian Online

© IRIN
A young rebel fighter during Sierra Leone''s civil war. Former Liberian President Charles Taylor allegedly backed rebels in exchange for diamonds.

FREETOWN, 20 Jun 2006 (IRIN) - Former Liberian president Charles Taylor was flown out of Freetown on Tuesday ahead of a trial for war crimes at The Hague for his alleged backing of rebel fighters in Sierra Leone in exchange for diamonds.

Officials of the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, which indicted Taylor, did not specify where the former Liberian leader was heading. But the Netherlands had said that it would host his trial should another country volunteer to imprison him, if convicted. Britain last week said it would allow Taylor to be jailed there.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan welcomed Taylor''s transfer. Annan expressed confidence that the trial would "mark a further victory in the struggle to end impunity."

Liberia and the Special Court want Taylor to be tried at facilities in The Hague because of security fears. However, the trial will remain under the jurisdiction of the Special Court.

“I think it’s a disappointment that Taylor couldn’t be tried in Sierra Leone - the place where the atrocities included in the indictment against him took place,” Corinne Dufka, West Africa Team Leader for New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), told IRIN. “I think the trial would have enforced to Sierra Leoneans that no individual, no matter how powerful, is above the law.”

But, Dufka said, “Any potential threats to the region have to take precedent over potential advantages of him being tried” in Sierra Leone.

Taylor faces charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape and funding the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone. The rebels were notorious for hacking off limbs and mutilating their victims.

There were fears in Sierra Leone and Liberia that some of Taylor’s supporters were emboldened by his presence in Freetown. Taylor, like all indictees, was allowed to have visitors and make phone calls while jailed. Some feared he could attempt to orchestrate a new rebellion in Sierra Leone or Liberia.

"It was a problem for us, but now that Charles Taylor has been taken away from here I am very happy, at least our security burden has been lessened," said Mustapha Bangura, a builder in Freetown.

Others, however, are more cynical.

"I believe that African problems should be solved by Africans, and the idea for other people to come here and determine for us what is justice and what is not justice is something I object to fundamentally," said businessman Michael Foray. "If they were interested in justice they should have stopped Charles Taylor from doing what he was doing. They play around until people die and after people have died that is when they come around to try them - where is the justice in that?"

In addition to Taylor’s alleged involvement in a decade-long war Sierra Leone, he triggered 14 years of civil war in Liberia when he launched a rebellion from neighbouring Cote d’Ivoire in December 1989 to unseat President Samuel Doe, who was later killed.

Taylor one day could face charges stemming from Liberia’s civil war. Some Liberians are calling on the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission to recommend that he face war crimes.

cs/ss

[ENDS]