ARREST
Volume: 8
By: Cesare P.R. Romano and André Nollkaemper Date: June 20, 2003 (Insight Newspaper)
 On June 4, 2003, the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) issued an arrest warrant against Charles Taylor, the incumbent President of Liberia. When the warrant was issued, Mr. Taylor was traveling to Ghana for talks with Liberian rebel groups to end a four-year civil war that has destabilized West Africa.
The indictment against Mr. Taylor had been issued on March 7, 2003, [1] but was kept sealed until the Special Court Prosecutor saw in Mr. Taylor's trip an opportunity to apprehend him. [2] The warrant was served on the authorities of Ghana, and transmitted to Interpol.
At the opening of the peace conference in Accra, in the presence of numerous African leaders, Mr. Taylor announced that he would step down by the end of his mandate in January 2004. Just after being applauded, he left the conference abruptly and boarded a Ghanaian plane to fly back to Liberia. Ghanaian authorities did not apprehend him.
On June 17, 2003, Liberia's Defense Minister and the rebels signed in Accra a peace agreement. The agreement provides for an immediate ceasefire, and within 30 days, the deployment of monitors to the front lines. These monitors will facilitate the subsequent deployment of peace-keepers, and a transitional government to replace Mr. Taylor's. As news of the agreement was released, Mr. Taylor warned that there will be no peace in Liberia unless the indictment against him is dropped. read more
|
ARREST
Liberia's Charles Taylor Found and Arrested
 By Craig Timberg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, March 30, 2006
MONROVIA, Liberia, March 29 -- On a rain-drenched tarmac, former Liberian president Charles Taylor was arrested by U.N. security officials Wednesday, read his rights, placed in manacles and then flown by helicopter to neighboring Sierra Leone to face charges of crimes against humanity.
So ended, for now anyway, the political career of one of the most-wanted men in the world, a charismatic warlord-turned-president-turned-fugitive who finished the day in the custody of a U.N.-backed tribunal that has indicted him on 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his long reign of terror across this fragile region.
Among his alleged crimes are mass murder, rape and mutilation, including support for a brutal rebel group in Sierra Leone that cut off the limbs of its civilian victims. Taylor, 58, is also accused of destabilizing Liberia and several neighboring countries while amassing a personal fortune from illicit trade in diamonds, guns and timber.
Taylor, who served as president from 1997 until he resigned under pressure in August 2003, is the first former African head of state to face international criminal charges for alleged misdeeds while in office. After stepping down, he went into exile in the southeastern Nigerian tourist city of Calabar, but last week Nigerian authorities agreed to return him to Liberia at the request of the newly elected president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.
"It's an important day for justice in the whole African region," said Ezekiel Pajibo of the Center for Democratic Empowerment, based in Monrovia. "It means that Liberia has begun the process of curbing the culture of impunity that has been existing in our country."
|
ARREST
Nigeria: 'How Obasanjo Reacted to Charles Taylor's Arrest'
A former Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Martin Luther Agwai (rtd), has explained how a former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, reacted to the arrest of the late Liberian President, Mr. Charles Taylor.
Agwai, who was also a former Chief of Army Staff, was speaking on Thursday in Abuja at the maiden Public Safety and Security Dialogue organized by the CLEEN Foundation and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).
He said that when the late Charles Taylor left Liberia to Nigeria, he was not escorted by the Nigerian government, adding that it was the European Union (EU) and ECOWAS who brought him into Nigeria
"He stayed in Calabar and one day, when things were becoming tough, Taylor wanted to leave Nigeria and I think he wanted to go to Libya. He left Calabar and was stopped in Lake Chad area to go to Chad and Libya. And the war was on Nigeria. Taylor is a wanted fugitive and Nigeria is allowing Charles Taylor to escape.
"In the process, the President and Commander in Chief was not even in the country when it happened. At last, Charles Taylor was apprehended. But after that incident, they now had the National Security Council meeting and I remember from then as the Chief of Army Staff, from the Army Chief of Command, the story I had from the Army Intelligence group that led to the arrest or stopping of Charles Taylor from Nigeria. And because he was identified by a Corporal who served in Liberia during the Liberia crisis.
"He stayed in Calabar and one day, when things were becoming tough, Taylor wanted to leave Nigeria and I think he wanted to go to Libya. He left Calabar and was stopped in Lake Chad area to go to Chad and Libya. And the war was on Nigeria. Taylor is a wanted fugitive and Nigeria is allowing Charles Taylor to escape.
"In the process, the President and Commander in Chief was not even in the country when it happened. At last, Charles Taylor was apprehended. But after that incident, they now had the National Security Council meeting and I remember from then as the Chief of Army Staff, from the Army Chief of Command, the story I had from the Army Intelligence group that led to the arrest or stopping of Charles Taylor from Nigeria. And because he was identified by a Corporal who served in Liberia during the Liberia crisis.https://allafrica.com/stories/201910250033.html |
