Posted on 04/01/2006 7:01:56 PM PST by blam
Taylor 'looked like whipped dog' as justice caught up
By Hans Nichols in Freetown, Sierra Leone
(Filed: 02/04/2006)
Slumped and sombre, Charles Taylor uttered not a single word as he sat in the United Nations helicopter that spirited him from Liberia, where he once ruled, to neighbouring Sierra Leone, where he is accused of committing war crimes.
"He looked like a whipped dog. A look of total defeat," said a UN official, one of 16 passengers on the flight that brought Taylor to the tribunal he has eluded for three years.
Charles Taylor in Freetown
"You look at someone that evil just sitting there, saying nothing, having no options. It was surreal."
The touchdown of Taylor's helicopter, inside the Special Court for Sierra Leone, marked the end of a frantic five days, that began when Taylor, 58, disappeared from his well-appointed villa in Calabar, south-east Nigeria, after learning that his asylum status had been cancelled. He was caught, trying to flee into neighbouring Cameroon.
Tomorrow, he will make his first public appearance in court and be asked to respond formally to 11 counts of war crimes allegedly committed during Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 civil war, which left over 50,000 dead and displaced 500,000.
His latest accommodation is a simple cot in a cell at the UN-backed tribunal's detention centre, in the centre of Freetown, with a lavatory down the hallway and a fan, but no air conditioning.
For company, he has nine other accused war criminals - some bitter enemies, others brothers-in-arms. They share a common room, a satellite television and three computers without an internet link.
In August 2003, as rebels shelled the Liberian capital, Monrovia, Taylor fled to Nigeria but vowed - "God willing" - a glorious political comeback to the country which he invaded in 1989, and of which he became elected leader in 1997.
Yet his return to Liberia on Wednesday, en route for Sierra Leone, was hurried and humiliating - just long enough for a medical check-up, a reading of his rights and transfer to UN custody.
His stay in Sierra Leone could also be brief. Because of fears that his detention could spark insurrection from his supporters in Liberia, and concerns that attempts might be made to spring him from jail, the court has requested the transfer of his trial to The Hague, possibly in one month's time.
"There is a not unnatural anxiety in neighboring countries that his trial in Freetown might produce some sort of regional instability," the court's chief prosecutor, 68-year-old Desmond De Silva, QC, told the Sunday Telegraph.
In a reference to the recent death of Slobodan Milosovic at The Hague, he added: "I believe there's a cell available."
It was the kind of wry quip that has earned Mr De Silva - a British lawyer who once successfully defended the former Leeds United midfielder, Lee Bowyer, against charges of causing grievous bodily harm - a reputation for courtroom theatrics.
What promises to be a riveting trial could emcompass everything, from the CIA's suspected involvement with Taylor's escape, from a Massachusetts jail, in 1985, to the role played by al-Qa'eda diamond traders in West Africa, as they sought to launder money.
In Sierra Leone's war-ravaged capital, once the Athens of Africa, Taylor's new billet is still far more comfortable than the shacks of wood, tin and tarpaulin that surround the court.
In a country where half the population lives on less than a dollar a day, his prison diet of meals like bread rolls, fried eggs and baked beans will be the envy of all. "He has a better breakfast than I do," said Mr De Silva.
Inside the court's high concrete walls, laced with concertina wire and guarded by fierce Mongolian UN peacekeepers, Taylor is said to be subdued and dejected.
When he arrived, he was forced to sit in a chair as a standing Sierra Leone police officer read the charges against him, according to sources inside the detention facility.
In a conflict where loyalties shifted, peace accords fizzed and diamond fields changed hands, brutality against civilians was almost the only constant. It is widely regarded as having been one of Africa's most horrific wars.
Rebels used amputations to cower the civilian population, and hacked off lips, ears and limbs. Pro-government militias employed similarly brutal tactics, with initiation rites that included cannibalism.
Taylor, a master of subterfuge and survival, is expected to mount a robust defence, funded by the millions of dollars he plundered from Liberian coffers. Yesterday a staff lawyer from the principal defender's office visited him for the second time. He has already submitted a list of four lawyers whom he would like to hire, to defend him.
With approval from the UN Security Council now granted, Taylor's transfer to The Hague is just a "matter of logistics", said Mr De Silva.
But the news that he would not stand trial in Freetown came as a blow to many of the court's personnel, who have long felt like the poor relation of the war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
Many feel that the transfer undercuts a key purpose of the court: allowing Sierra Leoneans to watch Taylor answer charges of war crimes, in the country where he allegedly committed them, rather than in some distant land. Many Freetown residents already see the court as a fanciful waste of money in a country with 80 percent unemployment.
The capital's dark and narrow streets are already swollen with ex-combatants, many of them former child soldiers seeking either work or trouble. They blame their poverty on the wealthy Lebanese diamond merchants and corrupt government ministers who live in plush hillside villas above town, which enjoy fine views of the ocean.
It is still easy to find Taylor apologists in Freetown, where most taxis are driven by former members of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel group which Taylor once sponsored - and petrol stations are controlled by the West Side boys, a gang which held thousands of UN peacekeepers hostage in 2000.
"We are sorry for the arrest of Charles Taylor," said Jonathan Kposowa, the secretary general of the RUF's political wing. "He provided a corridor for the peace process."
Yet for those victimised by the war, Taylor still instils fear even from his jail cell. Mohamed Turay, 30, a beggar, remembers March 18, 1998, the day rebels amputated his right hand, like yesterday.
He declined to comment on the court case, fearing retribution from the Taylor henchmen whom he suspects are still in the former warlord's pay.
"We don't want to say anything about him. I am afraid," he said, sitting outside a camp set aside for amputees. His friend, missing both his ears and his left hand, silently nodded.
Oh boy another Hague trial. If Slobbo's lawyers have not left yet. They get a new customer.
Not surprising. The CIA has lots of blood on it's hands.
The US/Soviet cold war created lots of misery for much of the Third World.
Yes, countries like Zimbabwe, the Congo, Sudan, et al. are so much better off these days than they were during the cold war. Perhaps you should move to one of these garden spots since they are no longer being oppressed by the evil CIA with all that blood on it's hands
By the way, did you think you were logged onto your DU account instead of your FR one?
L
Uhhh...The cold war did not create bin laden. He used it to further his own aims. We did not create him. You are above this.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/943912/posts
Jesse Jackson as Clinton's Special Envoy to Africa majorly supported Taylor. He arranged meetings and conferences and along with Lester Hyman arranged for first lady Hillay to meet Liberian first lady Jewel Howard Taylor back in 1998. That was the same time period al Qaeda began trading diamonds from Liberia
Don't forget Ramsey Clark is another lawyer buddy of Taylor.
If Ramsey Clark were my attorney, I'd beg for death by Prozac.
They may make him Secretary General of the UN.
If there were true justice they would give Taylor what he gave Samuel Doe. They would start off by cutting off his ears and then carve him up piece by piece.
Thank you for the ping.
No mention of Joe Wilson.
Still waiting to see this story in the msm.
One of the reasons they don't want him to remain in Africa is because a lot of his brutal thugs from the RUF and Foday Sankoh's amputating, drug-addled gangs still pose a threat to stability in those two countries, along with the rest of West Africa.
I wouldn't be surprised if Nigeria descends into all-out anarchy pretty soon.
The part about Clinton, Jesse Jackson and all of the race-hustlers being complicit in Taylor's rise to power needs to be told more often, though.
You're absolutely right about that.
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