Charles Taylor’s career from rebel leader to Liberian president, diamond dealer and despotic warlord, still holds many mysteries. But last week in a court in The Hague, where he is on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, he seemed eager to lift the veil on one of them.
Part of the lore surrounding Taylor is that he broke out of jail in Plymouth, Massachusetts, while awaiting extradition on charges of embezzling US$900,000 in Liberia. He told his judges that he did not escape on his own; rather, he said, he was helped by the CIA.
The plan, he said, was for him to join a Liberian military leader, Thomas Quiwonkpa, who was plotting a coup against former Liberian president Samuel Doe. Taylor said he was “100 percent positive” that the CIA was providing weapons for the plot.
The escape has little bearing on the charges against him at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, which is focused on allegations of atrocities committed from 1996 to 2002 by the militias he controlled in Sierra Leone. But the judges have allowed Taylor’s lawyer to lead him through the turmoil of his life and West Africa’s.
This week, hearings have covered Taylor’s time as a student activist in the Boston area, his return to Liberia and stint in the government. By September 1985, he had spent 15 months in the Plymouth County Correctional Facility awaiting extradition to Liberia.
One day, Taylor said, Harry Nyguan, a Liberian, visited “and he briefs me on what is being put together” by the CIA. Nyguan told him, he said, of the CIA’s role in the Quiwonkpa plot, the training of rebels and the plan to invade Liberia.
Taylor said he pressed Nyguan to get him released.
Soon afterward, he said, a guard, a supervisor, came to tell him he might be freed, but asked if he would be able to leave the US quickly.
“He verified my passport,” Taylor said.
“One evening about 10, he came and opened my cell. It was during lockdown time,” Taylor said. “Then he escorted me from the maximum security side through several gates to the minimum security side.”
Two other men were waiting.
“A car with two men was waiting outside,” he said. “They had instructions to take me as far as New York, where I wanted to go.”
His car was “a kind of secure car, a kind of government car.”
The drivers insisted he stay inside, rather than join his wife’s car, to avoid being stopped by state troopers, he said.
He said he made his way to Washington, then to Atlanta and Texas, where he drove unhindered across the border with Mexico, using his Liberian passport with his name. From Mexico City, he said he flew to Belgium and from there to West Africa.
By the time he reached Ghana, he said, the coup attempt by Quiwonkpa had failed.
Paul Gimiglia, a CIA spokesman, said the idea that the agency would help Taylor break out of jail was “completely absurd.”
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
Indonesian police have arrested 13 people after shocking images of alleged abuse against small children at a daycare center went viral, sparking outrage across the nation, officials said on Monday. Police on Friday last week raided Little Aresha, a daycare center in Yogyakarta on Java island, following a report from a former employee. CCTV footage circulating on social media showed children, most younger than two, lying on the floor wearing only diapers, their hands and feet bound with rags. The police have confirmed that the footage is authentic. Police said they also found 20 children crammed into a room just 3m by 3m. “So
About 240 Indians claiming descent from a Biblical tribe landed at Tel Aviv airport on Thursday as part of a government operation to relocate them to Israel. The newcomers passed under a balloon arch in blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag, as dozens of well-wishers welcomed them with a traditional Jewish song. They were the first “bnei Menashe” (“sons of Manasseh”) to arrive in Israel since the government in November last year announced funding for the immigration of about 6,000 members of the community from the states of Manipur and Mizoram in northeast India. The community claims to descend from
‘TROUBLING’: The firing of Phelan, who was an adviser to a nonprofit that supported the defense of Taiwan, was another example of ‘dysfunction’ under Trump, a US senator said US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan has been fired, a US official and a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in another wartime shakeup at the Pentagon coming just weeks after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ousted the Army’s top general. The Pentagon announced his departure in a brief statement, saying he was leaving the administration “effective immediately,” but it did not provide a reason or say whether it was his decision to go. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Phelan was dismissed in part because he was moving too slowly to implement reforms to
RSS