UN move to try Taylor in Netherlands
Britain circulated a draft UN Security Council resolution yesterday that would move the war crimes trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor from Sierra Leone to the Netherlands because of the danger he would pose by remaining in the West Africa region.
The resolution was in response to a request from the UN-backed Special Court in Sierra Leone, where Taylor faces 17 counts alleging war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious violations committed during the country’s 1991-2002 civil war.
Security Council diplomats said the resolution would probably be adopted early next week.
The text recognises that Taylor’s continued presence in West Africa is “an impediment to stability and a threat to the peace of Liberia and of Sierra Leone and to international peace and security in the region”.
The Sierra Leone court is handling cases stemming from more than 10 years of fighting over control of Sierra Leone and its diamonds, a conflict that saw rebels hacking off the limbs, lips and ears of civilian victims.
Taylor is accused of directing Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front rebels and trafficking in guns and diamonds while in power in neighbouring Liberia.
The Sierra Leone court would try Taylor at The Hague, the headquarters of several UN-backed courts. A nearby Dutch prison has housed war crimes suspects from the former Yugoslavia and for the International Criminal Court from the Congo.
Nigeria had granted asylum to Taylor under a 2003 agreement that helped end Liberia’s 14-year civil war.
Earlier this month, Liberia’s new President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said Liberia wanted Taylor sent to Sierra Leone to stand trial, not to Liberia, where it was feared he could upset the country’s fragile stability.
Taylor disappeared from his home in exile in southern Nigeria on Monday night as he was about to be handed over to the Sierra Leone court. He was captured on the run on Tuesday night in north-eastern Nigeria as he was trying to cross the border into Cameroon.
The text circulated yesterday said that the Netherlands should also enable witnesses in Taylor’s trial to appear before the court if necessary.
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