Liberia's Charles Taylor Behind Bars:

Posted By: Janine Delacroix

By CLARENCE ROY-MACAULAY, Associated Press Writer

Looking dejected, Taylor was led behind a razor-wired gate to the holding penitentiary at the U.N.-backed Sierra Leone court that has indicted him on 17 counts of crimes against humanity for supporting brutal rebels.

On Tuesday night, police caught Taylor in northern Nigeria, wearing a safari suit and carrying sacks full of dollars and euros in his car, which bore diplomatic plates. He was trying to cross the border to Cameroon. He was captured nearly 600 miles from the villa in southern Calabar where he lived in exile and from which he reportedly disappeared Monday night.

Taylor's imprisonment was a watershed moment for the tribunal and for West Africa, a region long shaken by Taylor's warmongering.

"Today is a momentous occasion, an important day for international justice, the international community, and above all the people of Sierra Leone," said Desmond de Silva, chief prosecutor of the tribunal called the Special Court.

"His presence in the custody of the Special Court sends out the clear message that no matter how rich, powerful or feared people may be, the law is above them."

De Silva said Taylor had been read his arrest warrant and would make his first court appearance by the end of this week.

Taylor, a bombastic speaker during his time in the bush and as Liberia's president, made no comment.

Nigeria, which had hosted Taylor in exile since he stepped down in 2003, agreed reluctantly on Saturday to hand Taylor over to the Sierra Leone war crimes tribunal. But he vanished Monday night while traveling in a guarded convoy taking him from Calabar to Port Harcourt, site of the nearest airport.

Nigeria had to admit Tuesday they had lost track of Taylor, embarrassing President Oluesgun Obasanjo on the eve of a state visit to the United States where he met President Bush.

Bush congratulated Obasanjo on apprehending Taylor when they met Wednesday.

"The fact that Charles Taylor will be brought to justice in a court of law will help Liberia and is a signal, Mr. President, of your deep desire for there to be peace in your neighborhood," Bush said.

After his capture Tuesday night, Taylor was deported to Liberia and then shuttled in a white U.N. helicopter to the war crimes tribunal compound in neighboring in Sierra Leone. Once inside the compound, he was driven to the prison in a white van, wearing a bullet-proof vest.

Taylor is charged with 17 counts of crimes against humanity stemming from his support of the Revolutionary United Front rebels that terrorized the civilian population here for years, chopping off the arms, legs, ears and lips of their victims.

The court began trials in 2004, but Taylor is their highest-profile defendant and the first African head of state to face trial on war-crimes charges in front of an international court. Nine other defendants are on trial, all charged like Taylor with crimes committed during Sierra Leone's brutal 1989-2002 civil war.

Nigeria had granted asylum to the fast-talking, U.S.-educated economist under a 2003 agreement that helped end Liberia's 14-year civil war.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said earlier this month Liberia wanted Taylor sent to Sierra Leone to stand trial, not to Liberia, where it was feared his presence could destabilize an already fragile country taking its first steps toward rebuilding since the new leader was installed in January.

Many people in Sierra Leone also fear his presence there and statements he makes in court could inflame tensions both in their country and across West Africa.

Some 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers are in Liberia and the last U.N. soldier of what was once 17,500-strong force left Sierra Leone in December. Another 10,000-strong U.N. and French peace force remains in Ivory Coast, where many former child soldiers that fought for Taylor are now believed embroiled in that conflict.

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

"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," said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said at U.N. headquarters in New York.

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Associated Press Writers Bashir Adigun and Michelle Faul in Abuja, Nigeria, and Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia, Liberia, and Edith Lederer in New York contributed to this report.

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