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Posted April 4, 2006
Charles Taylor changes mind
Wants trial in Sierra Leone
Minutes after the arraignment of former Liberian president
Charles Taylor before the Special War crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone
Monday, the former warlord, through his court appointed attorney, requested
that the trial be held in Sierra Leone instead of the Hague as is being
suggested by the court, the United states. He has also requested that his
immediate family be by his side in court for moral support. Mr. Taylor is
also reported to have security concerns and fears for his life.
Taylor's latest request for the trial to be held in Sierra Leone comes in
sharp contrast to earlier reports that he wanted the hearing to be held in
the Hague because of his fear that he may not get a fair trial. Taylor is
also quoted as saying he wants the trial in Freetown because the court will
have easier access to witnesses.
It is not known whether the special court will grant Mr. Taylor's
request, but court officials had earlier requested for the trial to be held
in the Hague because of mounting security concerns.
AT MONDAY'S HEARING - AP:
Taylor at first told the court he could not enter a plea because he did
not recognize its right to try him. But he went on to tell Justice Richard
Lussick "I did not and could not have" committed the atrocities that
allegedly occurred during Sierra Leone's civil war.
The court accepted his comment as a formal plea of not guilty.
Taylor, wearing a dark suit and maroon tie, spoke calmly and slowly.
Taylor is the first former African president to face war crimes charges.
He was brought to Sierra Leone last week after briefly escaping custody in
Nigeria, where he was staying since 2003 under a deal to end Liberia's civil
war.
Security was tight at the Special Court in Sierra Leone, the country to
which Taylor is accused of exporting his civil war. Court officials who
received death threats and Taylor will be protected by bulletproof glass and
dozens of U.N. peacekeepers from Mongolia and Ireland.
Taylor showed little emotion as a court official, Krystal Thompson of the
United States, read the indictment. He sat at a table, flanked by two
security officers. When the official read "murder, a crime against
humanity," he laced his fingers on the table before him.
Taylor met with his lawyers for the first time Monday morning shortly
before his court appearance. Two lawyers from Liberia and two from Ghana
"gave him our advice and he will consider it. We consider our mission
accomplished," said Kofi Akainyah, a Ghanian member of the team.
Many were suspicious when Nigeria's government announced Taylor's
disappearance last week, just days after Nigerian President Olusegun
Obasanjo reluctantly agreed to hand him over from the exile haven he had
been offered under an internationally brokered peace agreement ending
Liberia's 14-year civil war.
But Taylor's spiritual adviser said Nigerian security forces encouraged
Taylor to flee and helped him get to the Cameroon border before turning
around and arresting him in a double-cross.
Indian evangelist Kilari Anand Paul said Taylor told him in a phone call
from jail Saturday that State Security Service agents in two vehicles came
to his villa in southeastern Nigeria the night of March 28.
Taylor said they escorted him north, then released him "in the middle of
nowhere," Paul said from his home in Houston. "He said, `Where are you guys
going?' And they said they received instructions to leave him and they
left."
Before Taylor could cross into Cameroon, the agents who had freed him
"turned up and arrested him ... they had guns and told him to surrender
himself," said Paul, who met Taylor in 2003 and says he helped broker
Taylor's exile to Nigeria.
Nigeria again denied the allegation.
"The story is a far-fetched figment of his jaundiced imagination,"
Obasanjo spokesman Femi Fani-Kayode told The Associated Press. "He must have
been reading too many James Bond novels."
For two days, Nigeria had resisted calls from the United States, human
rights organizations and others to arrest Taylor to ensure that he would
stand trial. He was arrested Wednesday in northern Nigeria and taken to the
war tribunal in Sierra Leone, established to try those seen as bearing
greatest responsibility for atrocities during Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 civil
war.
Principal court defender Vincent Nmehielle said he had received calls
from lawyers from all over the world wanting to represent Taylor. He also
said the indicted Liberian warlord had told him he wanted time to get
together a top-notch team and was happy to be represented by Nmehielle at
Monday's hearing.
Nmehielle said Taylor asked his office to contact two lawyers he wanted
on his defense team: Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz and British
lawyer Karim Khan, who represented Taylor when he challenged the
jurisdiction of the war tribunal in 2003.
Taylor had earlier asked Paul to contact lawyers in the United States and
Britain, saying: "Bring two attorneys. Bring them any way you can. I need
somebody to take charge of this defense immediately ... (I need) to put
things into motion because we have only 30 days to answer the indictment."
Paul included an AP reporter in Sunday's conference call with Taylor, who
spoke from his cell at the tribunal. The reporter was not allowed to ask
questions for fear prison authorities would disconnect the call.
At the war crimes tribunal, Taylor is accused of backing Sierra Leonean
rebels notorious for maiming civilians by chopping off their arms, legs,
ears and lips. In return for supporting them, he allegedly got a share of
Sierra Leone's diamond wealth and used it to fund his ambitions in Liberia.
The leader of Taylor's defense team, Francis Garlawulo, said Taylor was
president when indicted in 2003 and argued the U.N.-backed court had no
jurisdiction over Liberia or its head of state. The court's appeals chamber
rejected a similar argument made by a Taylor lawyer after the indictment was
filed.
Garlawulo also questioned whether Taylor could receive a fair trial given
intense publicity surrounding the case, saying in recent days images of
Sierra Leoneans maimed by rebel fighters have dominated the world's
television screens.
Although Taylor made his first court appearance in Sierra Leone, Special
Court officials have requested that an international court in The Hague,
Netherlands, host the trial. Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has
expressed fear that Taylor supporters could use the trial as an excuse to
mount another insurgency in her country.
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