Liberia’s Supreme Court has authorised a lower court to rule on a claim by exiled former president Charles Taylor that his properties were illegally searched.
The decision was made on Tuesday after consultations between the Liberian courts concerned in a legal wrangle that also involves neighbouring Sierra Leone, where Taylor is wanted on war crimes charges.
A Monrovia criminal court had been due to make a judgement last Thursday on whether the searches by criminal investigators were legal when the Supreme Court delayed the case at the request of Taylor’s lawyers.
The homes in Liberia of the former head of state were searched on March 6 for ”documents, diamonds, money, arms and ammunition” at the request of the United Nations court and with a warrant issued by Liberian Justice Minister Kabineh Janneh.
Taylor brought a case against Janneh and Allen White, the chief investigator of the UN-backed war crimes court sitting in neighbouring Sierra Leone to try suspects in that country’s brutal civil war.
Taylor, whose departure from power and move into exile in Nigeria last August brought an end to 14 years of successive civil wars, is wanted by a UN tribunal in Sierra Leone for support he allegedly gave rebels there, trading arms for diamonds.
Just as Liberian criminal court Judge Timothy Swope was set to rule on the ”illegal search” case, Taylor’s lawyers asked the Supreme Court for a writ of prohibition to halt the process.
Taylor wants the criminal court to condemn what he considered an illegal search of his homes and seeks the return of his property and such ”further relief as the court may deem just and legal”, his lawyers said.
Last week lawyers for White and Janneh asked the criminal court to throw out the case on the grounds that the former president’s team had ”legally bungled”. — Sapa-AFP