Former Liberian leader and fugitive war crimes suspect Charles Taylor was arrested on Wednesday in a northern Nigerian town near the Cameroon border, police spokesperson Haz Iwendi said.
”Mr Taylor has been arrested. He was arrested in the early hours of today at Gamboringala in Borno State. He is currently with the security agents. He will be flown to Abuja later,” Iwendi said.
On Tuesday, President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government announced that Taylor had disappeared from his plush villa in the southeastern Nigerian city of Calabar, where he has lived in exile since he fled Liberia in August 2003.
The news sparked international condemnation and demands that Nigeria track him down and extradite him to Liberia’s neighbhour Sierra Leone, where international prosecutors have accused him of crimes against humanity.
Babagana Alhaji Kata, a trader working at the Gamgoringala border post said that Taylor had arrived at the frontier in an ash-coloured Range Rover jeep with the diplomatic corps number plate 81 CD 85.
”He was wearing a white flowing robe,” Kata said.
”He passed through immigration but when he reached customs they were suspicious and they insisted on searching the jeep, where they found a large amount of US dollars,” he added.
”After a further search they discovered he was Charles Taylor,” he said.
Kata said that Taylor was taken away towards the Borno State capital Maiduguri escorted by two soldiers, two immigration officers and two customs officials. – AFP
