Interpol said on Thursday it has issued an international arrest warrant for Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president living in exile in Nigeria, following a request from a United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone.
The international police organisation, based in Lyon, France, said in documents detailing the warrant — which it calls a Red Notice — that Taylor (55) is wanted on charges of crimes against humanity and ”grave breaches” of the Geneva Convention.
It carries the warning: ”Person may be dangerous.”
The order stems from the Sierra Leone tribunal’s demand that Taylor be extradited from Nigeria to face allegations related to his support during the 1990s for Sierra Leone’s main rebel group, which was involved in a 1991-2001 civil war that killed 200 000 people.
Taylor has been living in exile in Nigeria under official protection since August, when he resigned his presidency to make way for a transitional peace-building government in Liberia as rebel fighters closed in on the capital, Monrovia.
He stands accused of gross human rights abuses and large-scale corruption during civil wars in both Liberia and neighbouring Sierra Leone.
Nigeria intervened to offer Taylor asylum in order to revive a stalled West African-mediated peace process in Liberia, but has since come under increasing international pressure to hand the exile over to face justice.
Interpol, on its website, explained that a Red Notice is ”used to seek the arrest with a view to extradition of subjects wanted and based upon an arrest warrant”.
It noted that previous notices have been used to alert police around the world to look out for people wanted by the UN war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda for human rights violations. — Sapa-AFP