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Nigeria will hand over Taylor

2003-11-25 16:24

Ota, Nigeria - Nigeria will surrender ousted Liberian leader Charles Taylor for trial if that country asks, President Olusegun Obasanjo, Taylor's host in exile, said on Tuesday.

Obasanjo, speaking to foreign reporters, also said that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, under international sanctions, would not be invited to the upcoming British Commonwealth summit in Nigeria.

Obasanjo's comments marked the first time he had shown willingness publicly to yield Taylor for trial. He has strongly resisted US congressional pressure to turn Taylor over for trial on an existing, UN-backed war-crimes indictment.

Taylor has lived in exile in southern Nigeria since early August, when he fled, under international pressure, as rebels laid siege to the capital, Monrovia.

If Liberia's new interim government decides it wants him to face charges there, "then I believe he will understand sufficiently the need to go home," Obasanjo said, speaking in an interview at his farm north of Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital.

Asked what he would do if Taylor resisted, Obasanjo responded, "I would persuade him."

Liberia's government has not specifically said it wanted Taylor for trial.

Interim leader Gyude Bryant, appointed under an August 18 peace deal, has said he fears war-crimes trials would harm reconciliation in Liberia.

Taylor, a Libyan-trained guerrilla, launched Liberia into conflict in 1989, when he led an initially small insurgency to overthrow the government.

The 14 years of fighting that followed killed an estimated 250 000 Liberians.

The UN indictment accuses Taylor of backing rebels in a vicious 10-year terror campaign in neighbouring Sierra Leone.

The Bush administration has disavowed moves by the US. Congress to create a $2m reward for Taylor's capture, and to sanction Nigeria for offering him asylum.

- AP

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