Family fears for Taylor's life

2006-04-03 16:05

Ghana - Relatives of war crimes suspect and toppled Liberian president Charles Taylor fear for his safety, citing the deaths in custody of a rebel held for trial before the same court that is to hear Taylor's case and of former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic while detained at The Hague.

"Now we look at that as a record of the United Nations-backed court," Taylor's younger sister, Thelma Taylor-Saye, said in an interview on Sunday in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, where she lives.

"I don't know what they do before the victims die, but I know they usually come out to say the victims die of natural causes, so that's why we are raising the concern."

Desmond de Silva, chief prosecutor of the independent, UN-backed war crimes court trying Taylor, had dismissed such concerns, saying in an interview last week.

"We don't go around killing people."

De Silva also said it would be difficult for anyone who might want to harm Taylor to get to him in detention in the court complex in Freetown, capital of Sierra Leone. Taylor is accused of helping foment Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 civil war.

Accused of backing rebels

Sierra Leone guerrilla leader Foday Sankoh, whose group Taylor is accused of backing, died in UN custody in 2003 of natural causes. Sankoh spent his last days mostly deranged and incomprehensible.

Former Yugoslav President Milosevic died March 11 in his prison cell near The Hague, where he was on trial on war crimes charges for his part in the bloody breakup of his country in the 1990s.

Taylor is accused of backing Sierra Leonean rebels notorious for maiming civilians by chopping off their arms, legs, ears and lips.

In return for supporting them, he allegedly got a share of Sierra Leone's diamond wealth, which he used to fund his ambitions in Liberia.

Taylor launched an insurgency in Liberia in 1989 that led to the deaths of an estimated 200 000.

Taylor won a disputed election in Liberia in 1997 - some say Liberians voted for him out of fear of what he would do if he lost.

Many former allies took up arms against him in 2000 and attacked Monrovia in 2003.

Taylor fled to exile in Nigeria in August of 2003 as part of a deal to end fighting in Liberia.

Nigeria, under pressure from the United States and others, said last week it would hand over Taylor, but made no move to arrest him, and he fled.

He was captured within a day, flown to Liberia and then by helicopter to Sierra Leone.

- AP