Liberian President Charles Taylor’s son, who commands the dreaded Anti-Terrorist Unit (ATU) presidential guard accused of sweeping human rights abuses and torture, has fled to South Africa, informed sources said on Wednesday.
Charles Taylor Junior, popularly known as Chucky, left Liberia for South Africa over the weekend and intends to seek asylum there, said informed sources in the ATU.
They said Chucky had destroyed ATU records and documents before leaving.
Liberian rights groups have accused the ATU of widespread abuses.
Taylor is facing his darkest hour in a ruinous four-year civil war and now controls only a fifth of his war-ravaged country.
On Sunday, Taylor accepted an asylum offer in Nigeria but said he would not leave until international peacekeepers arrived to ensure a smooth transition.
The president has been indicted by a UN-backed court in Sierra Leone for war crimes in the neighbouring country’s barbaric 10-year civil conflict which claimed the lives of some 250 000 people, while maiming thousands of others. – Sapa-AFP