This had better not be true

FG planned Taylor’s escape – Ex-UN prosecutor
The Punch, Tuesday April 11, 2006

A former Chief Prosecutor of United Nations Special Court in Sierra Leone, Mr. David Crane, has alleged that the pre-trial escape of the former Liberian President, Mr. Charles Taylor, from his seaside resort home in Calabar, was masterminded by the Nigerian presidency.

The Nigerian government had in the last one week dismissed such claims, which officials described as a figment of the imagination of those making the allegation.

Crane, according to a report published by a Liberian Newspaper, The Analyst, on Monday, spoke as a panelist on Friday at an event organised by the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. on the topic, “Charles Taylor on Trial.”

According to the report, which was reinforced by Jacques Paul Klein, former Coordinator of the United Nations Operation in Liberia and currently a visiting lecturer in international affairs at Princeton University; among others, the Nigerian government feigned Taylor’s escape and then recaptured him to avoid a looming political backlash.

“As soon as President (Olusegun) Obasanjo realised the political blow-back that was about to happen in the United States as well as the international community, they (the Nigerian government) found Charles Taylor,” Crane reportedly told the audience.

He said President Obasanjo was forced to thwart Taylor’s escape after realising the political implications such plot would have on him in the United States and the international community.

Crane painted a scenario he alleged to have occurred during Obasanjo’s working visit to the U.S. late in March to justify his claim.

He said the President, who was scheduled to meet George Bush on March 29, was told by a senior member of the Bush government that he would not see the U.S. president if he did not find Charles Taylor. “Guess what, few hours later, they found Charles Taylor,” he told his audience.

Jacques Klein and the legal advisor to the Liberian Institute for Peace, Democracy and Good Governance, Philip Banks, said in their own presentations that Taylor’s foiled escape was an attempt by Africa leaders to maintain the old order.

The Nigerian presidency had before now denied involvement in Taylor’s disappearance from Calabar, where he had been on asylum for close to three years. Speaking during his U.S. visit, the President said, “Those who said that (Nigeria may have helped Taylor to escape) are wrong and should apologise.” He added that if his government were part of the escape plan, the former Liberian president would not have been arrested and turned over to the government of Liberia.

Taylor’s spiritual adviser, Indian evangelist Kilari Anand Paul, last week alleged that Nigerian security forces encouraged Taylor to flee and helped him get to the Cameroon border, before turning around and arresting him in a double-cross.

Paul said Taylor told him in a phone call from jail on April 1 that agents of the State Security Service in two vehicles came to his Calabar villa on the night of March 28, escorted him north and then released him “in the middle of nowhere.”

But the Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, dismissed Paul’s claim, saying it was a scene from a movie the cleric had witnessed.

“The story is a far-fetched figment of his jaundiced imagination,” Fani-Kayode said. He added, “He (Paul) must have been reading too many James Bond novels.”

The president of the United Nations Security Council for the month of April, Chinese ambassador Wang Guangya, said on Monday that the council was likely to approve a draft resolution on transferring Taylor’s trial to The Hague this week.

Speaking to reporters after a round of consultations on the British draft, he said, “My hope is that we can do it some time this week.”

Wang, however, said there were yet some sticking points to iron out, including who would bear the extra cost of transferring the trial to the premises of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

Taylor has been indicted by the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone on charges stemming from atrocities committed during Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war.

The charges include murder, sexual slavery, mutilation and the conscription of child soldiers in Sierra Leone. The prosecution alleges that Taylor sponsored and aided rebel groups, notably in exchange for a share in the lucrative diamond trade.