Former Liberian president faces war crimes tribunal

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone -- Former Liberian President Charles Taylor, captured on the run in Nigeria with sacks full of cash, was flown to Sierra Leone on Wednesday to be tried on war crimes charges.

A white U.N. helicopter carrying Taylor left neighboring Liberia and landed inside the compound of the U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal that will try the former warlord, U.N. officials said. A second U.N. chopper also landed on the helipad in the capital, Freetown.

Taylor then was jailed.

Taylor was captured Tuesday night by security forces in the far northeastern border town of Gamboru, in Borno State, nearly 600 miles from the villa in southern Calabar from which he reportedly disappeared Monday night, Information Minister Frank Nweke said in a statement. He was trying to cross the border into Cameroon.

President Olusegun Obasanjo, who was visiting the White House, gave few details about Taylor's arrest except to say he was picked up in a car with his wife and taken to a regional state capital.

President Bush said he appreciated Nigeria's work in apprehending Taylor.

"The fact that Charles Taylor will be brought to justice in a court of law will help Liberia and is a sign of your deep desire for there to be peace in your neighborhood," Bush told Obasanjo in an Oval Office meeting.

A Nigerian police official said Taylor was in a vehicle with his son, an aide and a local guide when arrested. They also were carrying two 110-pound sacks filled with U.S. and European currency, Alhaji Mohammed Aminu Bello said.

Taylor and his son were taken into custody while the others were let go, Bello said.

Taylor then was flown on a plane bearing a Nigerian flag to Monrovia, Liberia, where hundreds of U.N. troops patrolled. Dozens of elite Irish troops in armored personnel carriers parked their vehicles on the airstrip.

There are 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers in Liberia.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf had said she did not want Taylor because his presence could destabilize her fragile country as it takes its first steps toward rebuilding since she was installed in January.

Police swinging batons beat journalists back from the airstrip as dignitaries rushed to meet the plane. The head of Liberian state media, Charles Smetter, said Taylor -- wearing a gray safari suit and looking somber -- then boarded a U.N. helicopter for Sierra Leone.

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told reporters "it's a great relief that he's been recaptured."

"I think his capture and being put on trial does not only close a chapter, but it also sends a powerful message to the region that impunity will not be allowed to stand and would-be warlords will pay a price," Annan said.

Taylor disappeared just days after Nigeria, which had granted him asylum under a 2003 agreement that helped end Liberia's 14-year civil war, bowed to pressure to surrender Taylor to face justice before the tribunal.

All 22 Nigerian police officers responsible for guarding Taylor have been arrested, the Nigerian government said Tuesday.

The admission that Taylor had slipped away came an hour before Obasanjo left Nigeria to meet with Bush. The White House had suggested the meeting might be canceled if Nigeria's leader did not have some answers about Taylor's disappearance.

Obasanjo said the mood of the White House encounter had "changed drastically" as a result of Taylor's arrest.

"I feel vindicated," Obasanjo said as he rejected the notion that Nigerian authorities may have been complicit in Taylor's escape.

Those who spread such ideas "are wrong and owe an apology."

"If we had been negligent, then Charles Taylor would have got away," Obasanjo said. "He would not have been arrested if there was negligence."

Nigeria announced last week it would hand Taylor over to the tribunal to be tried for alleged war crimes related to Sierra Leone's 1991-2001 civil war, but the government made no moves to arrest him before he disappeared.

Taylor, a one-time warlord and rebel leader, is charged with backing Sierra Leone rebels, including child fighters, who terrorized victims by chopping off their arms, legs, ears and lips. He would be the first African leader to face trial for crimes against humanity.

While the Sierra Leone tribunal's charges refer only to the war there, Taylor also has been accused of starting civil war in Liberia and of harboring al-Qaida suicide bombers who attacked the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, killing more than 200 people.

Obasanjo initially resisted calls to surrender Taylor. But after Sirleaf asked Saturday that Taylor be handed over for trial, Obasanjo agreed.

Security officials in Liberia said they had arrested several Taylor supporters, allegedly for holding secret meetings to plot how Taylor could avoid standing trial.

Many of Taylor's loyalist soldiers are believed to be roaming freely in Liberia, Sierra Leone and civil-war divided Ivory Coast, from where Taylor launched his rebel incursion into Liberia on Dec. 24, 1989.