Mercenaries plot Taylor snatch
2003-12-12 20:38
Abuja - Nigeria warned a British-based mercenary outfit on Friday it would resist any attempt to capture former Liberian leader Charles Taylor, who is living in exile under Nigerian protection.
"Anyone who comes into Nigeria illegally to carry out illegal acts will be treated as an outlaw and be given the punishment that outlaws deserve," said Remi Oyo for Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo.
"I will not worry myself about headhunters and those who are seeking bounty and booty," she said.
Northbridge Services Group Ltd - a "private military company" whose website lists offices in Britain, Luxembourg and Ukraine - announced this week it was seeking investors for a mission to seize Taylor and hand him to a war-crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone.
"We are willing to split the profits of the reward should they be interested in furthering negotiations into funding an operation to bring the said indictee to the special court," Northbridge said in a news release published on its site.
In September, the United States passed a law setting aside $2m to serve as a bounty on Taylor's head for anyone who could get him to Sierra Leone, where he stands accused of backing a brutal rebel group.
The special tribunal in Freetown enjoys the support of the United Nations, and the global police agency, Interpol, has issued a warrant for Taylor's arrest to face charges that he funded and incited atrocities there during the 1990s.
The former warlord fled his capital, Monrovia, in August with rebel groups closing in on the city and the international community clamouring for him to step aside and allow an interim, peacebuilding government to be set up.
Nigeria's Obasanjo at first won great praise for his role in giving Taylor safe haven in the southeastern Nigerian city of Calabar, an offer which helped clinch a deal to persuade him to step down after more than a decade of bloody and lawless rule.
But pressure has since been growing on the Nigerian leader to hand the fugitive over to Sierra Leone, Liberia's equally wartorn neighbour.