Captured Taylor taken to war crimes trial

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor was taken to Sierra Leone yesterday to face 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity over a 1991-2002 civil war.

A UN helicopter carrying Mr Taylor arrived yesterday at a UN-backed special court in Sierra Leone, where he is due to stand trial for war crimes, witnesses and officials said.

Mr Taylor was flown directly into the large compound in Freetown housing the court, which had indicted him in March, 2003 on 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

He was taken handcuffed from the helicopter, helped into a bullet-proof jacket and taken to a cell where Sierra Leone's Assistant Inspector-General of Police read him the formal indictment, a foreign diplomat said.

Mongolian UN guards and Sierra Leonean paramilitary police were protecting the court compound, which is surrounded by a barbed wire-topped high wall and watchtowers.

"A UN helicopter carrying Charles Taylor landed at Freetown at 7:06 p.m. local time (1906 GMT). He is now in the custody of the special court for Sierra Leone," UN spokeswoman Marie Okabe said.

Mr Taylor was taken into custody earlier by UN officials in Liberia after being flown from northern Nigeria, where police had captured him while he was trying to escape over the border into Cameroon.

UN officials took custody of Taylor in Liberia's capital, Monrovia, and flew the handcuffed and grim-faced former warlord to Sierra Leone to face a UN-backed special court.

Mr Taylor, 58, was surrounded by a ring of UN troops after arriving in Liberia from Nigeria, where hours earlier police had stopped him from sneaking across the border into Cameroon.

Mr Taylor, whose name is associated with West Africa's most brutal conflicts over more than a decade, was quickly flown by helicopter towards Freetown, the Sierra Leone capital, where the UN-backed court is located.

"I think today is a triumph for international justice... He will face his day in court," Liberian Solicitor-General Tiawon Gongloe told Reuters at the airport.

Mr Taylor, seen as the mastermind of a web of intertwined regional wars that killed as many as 300,000, is accused of receiving diamonds in exchange for supporting Sierra Leone rebels who often hacked off the limbs of their victims.

His capture eased Nigeria's embarrassment over his escape on Monday from a villa in the south-eastern town of Calabar where he had spent two-and-a-half years in exile as part of a 2003 deal to end a civil war in Liberia.

Mr Taylor's unexplained brief disappearance had initially drawn sharp international criticism as Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo began a visit to the United States.

But Mr Obasanjo said in Washington yesterday after meeting President George W. Bush he felt vindicated by the capture.

Human rights groups said Mr Taylor's speedy transfer to face justice would send out a strong message on the world's poorest continent, where thousands have endured death and suffering at the hands of dictators, tyrants and warlords.

"Today, Liberia and Sierra Leone are safer and more hopeful places. Today West Africa has moved one step closer to dismantling the devastating grip of impunity," said Corinne Dufka, head of the West Africa office of Human Rights Watch.

In Freetown, Mr Taylor will be held in a special compound guarded by UN troops which houses the Special Court for Sierra Leone, set up to try those accused of war atrocities in the country. He has not been indicted for any crimes in Liberia.