Victims want Taylor extradited

2004-07-14 15:58

Abuja - Displaying scarred limbs hacked by machetes, two men whose arms were mutilated by West African rebels allied to ousted Liberian leader Charles Taylor appeared in court to demand that Taylor be extradited before a war-crimes tribunal.

Emmanuel Egbuna and David Anyaele, businessmen from Nigeria, were captured by Revolutionary United Front rebels while on a trip to Sierra Leone in 1999, and maimed by machete in the rebels' trademark atrocity.

Anyaele, whose arms were hacked off, now wears prosthetic limbs. Egbuna's hands were nearly severed and are now almost useless, despite being later surgically reattached.

Taylor was indicted by a UN-backed war-crimes tribunal last year as a primary supporter of the Sierra Leone rebels. He has lived in exile in Nigeria since he was toppled from power in his own nation last year.

Egbuna and Anyaele, who appeared in court on Tuesday, have demanded Nigerian courts review Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo's granting of asylum to Taylor.

"We were captured and tortured by the RUF people. They mutilated our bodies," said Anyaele, showing his prosthetic arms to journalists outside the court.

Trafficking guns and diamonds

"If Charles Taylor is saying he is innocent, make him go to Sierra Leone and be tried by the UN tribunal. We are confident we will win," he added.

Taylor is accused of trafficking guns and diamonds with Sierra Leone's insurgents. Rebels killed, raped, kidnapped and maimed tens of thousands of civilians in a failed 1991-2002 campaign to capture control of Sierra Leone's government diamond fields.

Taylor has lived in a mansion in the southeastern jungle city of Calabar since fleeing to Nigeria on August 11 as rebels opposed to his rule laid siege to the Liberian capital, Monrovia.

Obasanjo has refused extradition, but has not ruled out compelling Taylor to surrender to a future elected government in Liberia, if requested.

Judge Jonah Adah, presiding over the case in Nigeria's capital of Abuja, has ordered Taylor to appear in Nigerian court to face his accusers.

Adah ordered on Tuesday that a subpoena issued earlier for Taylor be pasted on courthouse walls in Calabar and published in Nigerian national newspapers.

Nigeria's security forces previously refused to allow judicial authorities to deliver a subpoena to the exiled leader at his cloistered, heavily protected residence, officials have said.

Taylor and his aides could not immediately be reached for comment.

- AP