Taylor's homes scoured

2004-03-06 10:25

Monrovia - War crimes investigators scoured ex-President Charles Taylor's residences in Liberia on Friday, seeking to buttress allegations the one-time warlord aided and directed rebels in neighbouring Sierra Leone's brutal civil war.

Escorted by UN peacekeeping staff carrying AK-47s, the investigators could be seen moving through Whiteflower, the presidential residence where Taylor passed some of his last hours in Liberia before fleeing into exile in Nigeria on August 11 as rebels besieged this Atlantic-side capital.

Investigators were also searching Taylor's private home "for information to further support strong evidence that led to Taylors indictment" unveiled June 4, the joint UN-Sierra Leone tribunal said in a statement issued in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

In its 17-count indictment, the tribunal accuses Taylor of supporting, directing and running guns and gems with Sierra Leone's vicious Revolutionary United Front rebels. Taylor's lawyers say the court doesn't have the jurisdiction to charge him, since he was a head of state during the time of his alleged crimes.

The insurgents gained international infamy for hacking off the limbs of their civilian victims and carving their initials into their chests during that country's 1991-2002 civil war. The long-infirm leader of that insurgency, Foday Sankoh, died last year in the court's custody before he could be tried.

Taylor, then a warlord, sparked Liberia's crisis with his 1988-1996 rebellion. He was elected president in 1997 and rebels took up arms against him two years later, driving into Monrovia last year.

An August 18 peace deal arranged a transitional government meant to lead to elections in 2005 before ceding to a democratic government in early 2006. Some 12 000 soldiers of an eventual 15 000 UN peacekeeping force is spreading out into Liberia.

Since Taylor launched his insurgency from another Liberia neighbour, Ivory Coast, more than 150 000 Liberians died in fighting and Taylor became viewed as a prime destabilising force in the region.

African diplomatic and military heavyweight Nigeria - which helped arrange the peace deal and Taylor's resignation, sending the first peace troops to secure Monrovia - says it won't be pressured into handing Taylor to the war-crimes tribunal. It says it acted in the interests of West African stability and must honour its pledges to Taylor.

- AP