Former President Taylor to be Handed over to Liberia
March 26, 06 by Edahn Golan
Nigeria is to extradite the exiled former president of Liberia, Charles Taylor, to Liberian custody. The warlord has been living in Nigeria since August 2003. He escaped his country following the civil wars he flamed in West Africa. One of the outcomes of these wars was the illicit trade in diamonds for arms.
Taylor is wanted by a U.N. backed court in Sierra Leone. Liberia’s request to hand over Taylor was made at the request of its recently elected president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, to enable Taylor to stand trial in Sierra Leone.
The Liberian civil war and wars in neighboring countries have cost the lives of hundreds of thousand of people. These wars were notorious for their forced child soldiers, the hacking off of limbs, and widespread rapes.
No time frame has been announced for Taylor’s transfer; however officials in the region hope that it will happen in the next few days.
