Charles Taylor 'still meddling'
2005-04-29 09:42
Washington - Eight influential United States senators on Thursday urged US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to push for the handover of former Liberian president Charles Taylor to a special tribunal so he can be tried for alleged war crimes.
The senators also said there were credible reports that Taylor continues to meddle in Liberia's affairs and has "associations with al-Qaeda."
"It is time for the international community, the UN and the United States to put an end to this extraordinarily destructive chapter in West African history," Senator Judd Gregg, a Republican, said in a statement.
"The only way we can put an end to it is if we allow the court to try Taylor and bring him to justice."
Taylor took exile in Nigeria in August 2003 to end the second of two civil wars in Liberia since 1989, evading an indictment by the UN-backed war crimes court in next-door Sierra Leone for allegedly arming and training rebels during that country's decade of war.
Despite an international warrant for his arrest, the Nigerian government has refused to hand Taylor to the Freetown tribunal, saying his exile was essential to the peace process in Liberia.
"There are credible reports that Mr Taylor has repeatedly broken the terms of his agreement with the Nigerian government, continues to meddle in the affairs of Liberia and other West African nations, is involved in a number of activities that threaten to destabilize the region, and has associations with al-Qaeda," the senators said in a letter to Rice.
"Permitting an indicted war criminal to escape justice from a United Nations and United States supported tribunal, undermines Security Council resolutions and damages our country's efforts to promote and protect human rights around the world," they wrote.
In addition to Gregg, the letter was signed by Republican senators Lincoln Chaffee, Arlen Specter and Mike DeWine, and Democrats Jack Reed, Russell Feingold, Richard Durbin and Patrick Leahy. - AFP
- SAPA