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Johnson Sirleaf requests Charles Taylor's extradition

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said on Friday that she had asked Nigeria to extradite Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president, to face war crimes charges.

Johnson Sirleaf told the UN Security Council that she had made a formal request to Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Taylor claimed asylum in Nigeria in August 2003 as part of an internationally brokered peace settlement ending 14 years of civil war in Liberia.

He was subsequently indicted on 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity by a UN-backed court in neighboring Sierra Leone.

Taylor, 58, a warlord turned president, rampaged through his own country and much of West Africa during the 1990s, unleashing ruthless campaigns of torture, rape and dismemberment that convulsed civilian populations.

Even from exile, he has maintained influence in Liberia, with thousands of young combatants still loyal to him.

"Liberia's peace is fragile. There are many loyalists in our country to Mr Taylor, there are many business interests he has," Johnson Sirleaf said.

"Whatever decision is taken by the African leadership must ensure that the safety of the Liberian people and the stability of our nation is not undermined," she said.

She said Obasanjo would consult African leaders because they had been signatories to the deal that sent Taylor into exile and would need to agree to send Taylor to the court in Sierra Leone.

She said she also wanted to "ensure that in any proceedings, there is an environment that protects all, including the accused's, fundamental human rights."

She was not seeking Taylor's extradition to Liberia, she said, because he was not under indictment there. If he were sent to Liberia, UN peacekeepers there have been authorized by the Security Council to transfer him to the Sierra Leone tribunal.

Obasanjo has been under pressure to act on Taylor but had said he would await a request from a democratically elected Liberian president. Johnson Sirleaf was elected in November and inaugurated on Jan. 16.

She complained that the international community should have acted sooner to help Liberia free itself from Taylor's influence.

Corinne Dufka, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch in Dakar, Senegal, who has followed the Taylor case closely, hailed the move as an "enormous step toward advancing justice in West Africa," but she said she was troubled over Obasanjo's decision to seek the approval of other African leaders.

"Obasanjo must now play his own part in the fight against impunity in West Africa," she said.
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