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.”
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS