| Submit your comments on this article |
| Africa: West |
| Liberian Leader Wants Taylor on Trial, Maybe |
| 2003-10-27 |
| Former President Charles Taylor should stand trial at the U.N.-backed Sierra Leone court accusing him of war crimes, Liberia’s new leader said Monday. Well, that’s not exactly what he said, but continue. Gyude Bryant, who heads a newly installed power-sharing government, said the ex-warlord should leave his exile in Nigeria and face the court, which indicted Taylor for supporting a brutal Sierra Leonean rebel movement during that country’s 1991-2002 civil war. Now for the quote. "I think Taylor should go to the court in Sierra Leone and face the tribunal and exonerate himself from the charges made against him," Bryant said. "It’s only honorable that Taylor do that." See, Gyude said that Chucky should go on his own to face the court and show that the allegations are false. This way he looks good to the press without worrying about it really happening. If he was serious, he’d have asked Nigeria to extradite Chuck. Taylor is fighting the indictment issued by the U.N.-Sierra Leone court in June. Taylor took up refuge in Nigeria Aug. 11, with Liberian rebels besieging the capital and international leaders clamoring for his departure. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo says he offered Taylor asylum in the interest of regional peace and will not hand him over to the court. Taylor’s lawyers are due to argue his appeal in hearings in the Sierra Leonean capital, Freetown, on Friday. His lawyers say the indictment against him is invalid because Taylor was head of state at the time of his alleged crimes and therefore immune. That defense didn’t work for Germans or Japanese after WW2. After Taylor left Liberia, insurgents lifted their siege of Monrovia and signed a peace accord a week later setting up a transitional government, meant to arrange democratic elections in late 2005. The warring parties chose Bryant, a Monrovia businessman, to head the interim government on Oct. 14. In a statement that day from exile, Taylor congratulated Bryant and said he supported his fledgling administration. Uh huh. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #1 If all the war Same question in Afghanistan with Dostum and company. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-10-27 4:38:28 PM |