Africa can't even turn over an exiled, monitored war criminal without screwing it up!

[azurefly]

Charles Taylor, Liberian-dictator/war-criminal-at-large, disappears on the eve of being turned over for trial by international court


Snips from the article:

LAGOS, Nigeria (CNN) -- War crimes suspect and former Liberian President Charles Taylor is missing from the Nigerian residence where he lived in exile, Nigeria's government said Tuesday.

Taylor, who is wanted on war crimes charges by a court in Sierra Leone, vanished from the villa Monday night, government spokesman Femi Fani-Kayode said.

Nigeria agreed Saturday to turn Taylor over to the Liberian government so he could face a U.N.-backed tribunal in Sierra Leone.

...

Desmond de Silva, the prosecutor of the court in Sierra Leone, called Taylor "an international fugitive."

"Today marks a step back on the road to accountability and justice," de Silva said in a statement on the court's Web site. "Charles Taylor ... has been indicted by an international criminal court. The president of Liberia has requested an end to his temporary asylum in Nigeria. The president of Nigeria has agreed to this. For him now to disappear, on the eve of his transfer, is an affront to justice."

EXACTLY. Someone is thumbing their nose at justice, making these governments look like fools, and certainly making them look complicit in his "escape."

The guy was supposedly being monitored! Then suddenly, the day before he's to be taken back for the start of his trial, he's nowhere to be found? :barf:

Taylor studied in U.S.
Born in 1948, Taylor is the third of 15 children, descendants of freed U.S. slaves who established the Liberian republic in the 19th century.

His father sent him to the United States, where he obtained a degree in economics from Bentley College in Massachusetts.

He became involved in radical Liberian student politics. Influenced by Marxist and Pan-African ideas, he once advocated burning down the Liberian Embassy in Washington.

He earned cash in his spare time working on a production line at a toy factory. He became a teacher and was part of dictator Samuel Doe's government in 1980 before being exiled to the United States.

In the United States, he was jailed for allegedly stealing $900,000 in Liberian government money -- only to escape from a Massachusetts prison, along with four petty criminals, in 1985 after a year in captivity.

In 1989, he returned to West Africa and launched a revolt from the Ivory Coast against Doe, an ethnic Krahn who had taken power in a military coup.

Newspeople say "alleged" when someone is picked up for a crime, before they are tried and convicted, because they don't want to state authoritatively that the person "DID" something, in case they are eventually exonerated.

In this case, why say "he was jailed for allegedly stealing $900,000"? He was apparently IN JAIL for the crime, and you go to jail in the U.S. either prior to your trial while you await trial (without bond) OR you go after you've been convicted -- in which case, it is no longer necessary to hedge and say you "allegedly" committed your crime. The finding of guilt against you takes away the "alleged."

So it's nice to know that an international fascist scum was able to just waltz out of a Massachusetts prison. With that fact in history, I guess we can't criticize the Nigerians too much for losing track of him.

Maybe he should have just been executed, or handed over to those from whom he stole nearly a million dollars?



-azurefly

 

[Leif]

Well, seeing as Charles Taylor was caught, and rather quickly I might add, this thread seems sort of moot.

So, all of Africa was responsible for turning him over? Really, the entire continent? I guess Europe isn't much better, seeing as the Balkan states haven't been too cooperative in turning over some of their war criminals.