The prosecutor at the war crimes tribunal for Sierra Leone on Monday accused former Liberian president Charles Taylor of backing a January assassination bid against his longtime adversary Lansana Conte, President of Guinea.
”From exile, Charles Taylor remains in contact with his political network in Liberia on a day-to-day basis. He has also mobilised his network of warlords and cronies to keep West Africa in turmoil,” said David Crane, a former United States Defence Department lawyer, in a statement.
”My office has information from multiple sources indicating that in early January, Charles Taylor ordered the assasination of Guinean President Lansana Conte as revenge for Conte’s support of the [Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy] Lurd rebel faction in Liberia,” Crane said.
”After the failed attempt to kill Conte on January 19, these same sources have reported that the effort will soon be repeated.”
There was no elaboration as to what the ”information from multiple sources” was that proved Taylor was behind the January 19 shots fired on Conte’s convoy as he motored through a popular neighbourhood in the Guinea capital Conakry.
Taylor was granted asylum in Nigeria in August 2003 after stepping down to end a seven-year civil war in Liberia that began with an uprising by rebels known to have been backed by Guinea.
He is wanted by the United Nations-backed court sitting in Freetown to answer an 18-count indictment for having allegedly armed and trained rebels in their decade of civil war against the Sierra Leone government, which ended with a peace pact in January 2002.
The US-educated Taylor has been in an increasingly isolated and luxurious exile in southern Nigeria despite the best efforts by Crane and other international powers to dislodge him.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has consistently maintained that without proof that Taylor has violated the terms of his asylum, only an elected Liberian government can demand, and obtain, his extradition.
Crane’s revelation, which came at the end of his tenure as chief prosecutor at the UN-backed court trying those who bear the ”greatest responsibility” for atrocities committed during the war, follows demands last Thursday from eight US senators that Taylor be brought to trial.
”Charles Taylor will remain a menace to West Africa until he is turned over for trial to the special court for Sierra Leone,” Crane said.
”Charles Taylor is giving new truth to the old saying that there can be no peace without justice.” – Sapa-AFP