The Special Court for war crimes in Sierra Leone said on Thursday it had assigned a lawyer free of charge for Liberia’s former warlord and president Charles Taylor, who faces trial for crimes against humanity.
Karim Asad Ahmad Khan, a barrister with a British firm, has been appointed to represent Taylor for three months, said the court’s principal, Vincent Nmehielle, in an order posted on the court’s website.
Taylor is considered to have been mainly responsible for a series of civil wars in Liberia and neighbouring Sierra Leone between 1989 and 2003, which between them left around 400 000 people dead.
Nmehielle said he decided to assign Taylor a counsel from a list of lawyers available to represent suspects who cannot afford to pay for their own chosen defence experts after he found Taylor to be ”partially” indigent.
”Considering that the accused may not have sufficient means at the present time to retain counsel of his own … the principal defender directs the assignment of … Khan as provisional counsel to the accused for a period of 90 days, effective April 5 2006,” said the order.
Taylor was hauled before the court here after being caught last week trying to escape from his refuge in Nigeria, after that country’s president, Olusegun Obasanjo, gave the green light for his trial.
The court wants him tried in The Hague, in the Netherlands, to minimise the security risk posed by his presence in the volatile region where he is thought to still command significant support.
Taylor, who pleaded not guilty on Monday to 11 charges relating to atrocities in Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war, has been consulting with lawyers from the United States, Liberia and Ghana.
Relatives on Wednesday said he has almost completed putting together his legal team and will retain some of the lawyers who have so far visited him for his trial, the date of which is yet to be fixed subject to a decision on its venue. — AFP
