Dozens of Liberian police officers have been wounded in clashes between the regular force and the body guarding the main port in the capital, Monrovia.

Liberian National Police spokesman Alvin Jask said the clashes came after his officers went to the seaport to investigate reports of fuel theft.

He said the police director was taken hostage by the seaport police, who threw stones at her reinforcements.

The fighting was quelled by UN troops – deployed after a 14-year war.

The BBC’s Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia says this is the first clash between rival security forces since Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf took power last year, following historic elections.

Mr Jask said 22 police officers were in hospital – 18 with serious injuries.

Deputy Port Managing Director Reginald Pratt said at least 12 of their workers had been injured in the attack and they were being treated at clinics around Monrovia.

Eyewitnesses say the reinforcements called by police director Beatrice Munah Sieh, moved into the port compound, assaulting port workers and smashing doors.

Our reporter says blood trails could be seen in some places where the early morning clash took place.

Ambulances shuttled between the port and hospitals with the wounded as hundreds of curious people stood watching outside the port fence.

BBC NEWS | Africa | Rival Liberia police forces clash

BRUSSELS – The European Union on Monday lifted its embargo on Liberian diamonds, following a decision by the UN Security Council in April that the trade in “blood diamonds” from the country has been stemmed.

The decision, allowing the import of Liberian diamonds for the first time since 2004, was made retroactive to April 27, when the security council made its decision to lift the ban, the EU said in a statement.

Last month Liberia was admitted to the international diamond exporting scheme known as the Kimberley process after satisfying experts it had taken measures to prevent the trade in “conflict diamonds.”

The government in Monrovia has pledged to honour conditions set by the UN to ensure the gems, blamed for fuelling a barbaric 14-year civil war in the country, do not slip out of the tight international diamond control system.

Endowed with abundant timber, rubber and mineral wealth, Liberia lay in ruins after its civil war. Its former leader and warlord Charles Taylor is on trial at The Hague for war crimes committed in neighbouring Sierra Leone.

The trial was adjourned for a week on Monday as the former Liberian president again boycotted the hearings over problems with his defence lawyers.

During back-to-back internal conflicts that lasted from 1989 to 2003, in Liberia and Sierra Leone, rivals plundered the country’s wood and diamond resources to purchase the arms they used to wage war in a conflict that claimed more than 400,000 lives.

An expert mission, headed by the European Union and Botswana, visited Liberia in March and concluded that it had met the conditions for admission and the country will now be able to export its uncut diamonds legally to the 70-plus Kimberley Process member states.

The European Union is the current chair of the Kimberley process and EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid Louis Michel called Liberia’s admission “a very important step” for its development, “marking the very end of any potential future financing of the war by blood diamonds.”

Liberia had been subject to UN diamond sanctions for six years as a result of its civil war.

The labour-intensive diamond industry is expected to help reduce the rate of unemployment in Liberia, which stands at around 85 percent in what was once one of Africa’s most prosperous nations.

Liberia’s ex-President Charles Taylor has boycotted the resumption of his war crimes trial in The Hague.

Defence lawyer Vincent Nmehielle said Mr Taylor had called him to say he would not attend the court, but did not appear to provide an official reason.

Mr Taylor is accused of backing rebels in Sierra Leone in an 11-year campaign that killed thousand of civilians. He denies all the charges.

It is the first case of its kind against an African former leader.

Mr Taylor previously boycotted the trial’s opening on 4 June, saying it would not be fair because he had a single defence lawyer.

‘No official reason’

“He said the chamber knows why he will not be in court,” Mr Nmehielle said referring to the call he had received from Mr Taylor.

But presiding judge Julia Sebutinde said: “For the record, the chamber does not know. We have not been officially been informed why Mr Taylor is not in court.”

Taylor – the trial begins

At the trial opening in June, Mr Taylor explained the reasons for his boycott in a letter read to the judges by his lawyer, Karim Khan.

The letter said Mr Taylor would “not receive a fair trial” at the court that was not “fit for purpose”, adding that he would not appear until “adequate time and facilities are provided”.

Mr Khan then left the court, saying he was not in a position to represent his client without further instruction from him.

Judge Julia Sebutinde ordered the trial to continue without Mr Taylor, and the prosecution delivered its opening statements.

‘Not guilty’

Mr Taylor has been indicted on 11 charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and violations of international humanitarian law over his alleged role in the brutal civil war in Sierra Leone.

TAYLOR TIMELINE
1989: Launches rebellion	1991: RUF rebellion starts in Sierra Leone 1995: Peace deal signed 1997: Elected president 1999: Liberia’s Lurd rebels start insurrection to oust Taylor June 2003: Arrest warrant issued August 2003: Steps down, goes into exile in Nigeria

The charges include terrorising the civilian population, murder, sexual violence, physical violence, using child soldiers, enslavement and looting.

Mr Taylor pleaded not guilty to all the charges at his first appearance at the court in Freetown, Sierra Leone, in March 2006.

The Special Court for Sierra Leone has been approved by both the UN and the government of Sierra Leone.

It is sitting in the facilities of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague because of the risks that the trial might lead to tensions within Sierra Leone itself.

The BBC’s David Bamford says the trial hinges on determining the degree to which Mr Taylor helped start, prolong and deepen the war in Sierra Leone.

‘Blood diamonds’

Mr Taylor started Liberia’s civil war in 1989 and became one of a number of warlords competing for control in the West African country.

He later emerged as Liberia’s most powerful politician and won the 1997 presidential election that ended the war there.

Meanwhile in 1991, one of Mr Taylor’s comrades-in-arms, Foday Sankoh, also started his own rebellion in neighbouring Sierra Leone.

The prosecution claims Mr Taylor provided the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) leader with training, money, arms and ammunition to start the rebellion and even lent him fighters to take part in the initial attack.

The RUF became notorious for hacking off the hands and legs of civilians during their decade-long war.

It is alleged that Mr Taylor shared a common plan with the RUF’s commanders to gain power and control over Sierra Leone, so he could gain access to its diamonds and have a government in Freetown that would support his aims.

However, the rebellion in Sierra Leone collapsed. Its war crimes court indicted the rebel leaders and Mr Taylor as well. Mr Sankoh died in 2003.

That year, Mr Taylor himself lost power in Liberia after rival militias rose up and forced him into exile in Nigeria.

He was deported by Nigeria last year in controversial circumstances and flown to The Hague to await his trial.

BBC NEWS | Africa | Liberia’s Taylor boycotts trial

Freetown – A UN-backed voluntary repatriation exercise to return Liberian refugees from Sierra Leone will wind up next week, a UN High Commission for Refugee official said on Friday.
“Since we began repatriating Liberians, about 47 769 have been sent back and the last batch of 300 are expected to return at the end of the month when our programme lapses,” UNHCR representative Elike Segbo told a news conference.
Of the group, 16 000 Liberian refugees were resettled in third countries, notably the United States, Canada and Australia, he said.
Sierra Leone was host to more than 54 000 Liberians who fled a 14-year civil war which ended in the nearby country in 2003.

Fourteen years of vicious civil war left no corner of the tiny west African country unscathed and claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
At the height of the Liberian crisis, about 850 000 people were displaced by violence, the majority of whom sought asylum in neighbouring countries.
Last year about 169 000 registered Liberian refugees remained in various countries across west Africa.

IOL: Last of Liberian refugees to exit S Leone

DAKAR, Senegal: When Charles Taylor’s long-awaited trial on 11 war crimes and crimes against humanity opened in The Hague on June 4, Taylor upended the proceedings by refusing to appear, saying he was too poor to afford his own defense and unhappy with the one provided by the court, despite having amassed a personal fortune estimated at half a billion dollars while in power in Liberia.

But a confidential report by a panel of experts advising the UN Security Council suggests that Taylor may still have access to considerable wealth, salted away in investments in Nigeria and Liberia.

The Nigerian government refused to allow the panel, a group of financial analysts and specialists in the timber and diamond trades, to travel to Nigeria to investigate Taylor’s finances, according to the report. Nor have Nigeria and Liberia frozen assets believed to be connected to Taylor, in part because they have not done so for several other prominent local officials whose assets the United Nations has said should be frozen as well.

The report, which was sent to the Security Council on Wednesday, found evidence documenting payments Taylor received during his presidency from a timber company that was connected to an arms dealer convicted last year in a Dutch court of smuggling weapons for Taylor.

There was also evidence suggesting that Taylor retained links to one of Liberia’s biggest cellphone companies.

Taylor’s claims of penury are a surprising turn of events for a man believed to have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from Liberia and neighboring Sierra Leone, which he dragged into a civil war that lasted more than a decade. Taylor built a fortune in kickbacks from sales of the rich array of natural resources from both countries.

A court spokesman said that Taylor still had a court-appointed lawyer, Karim Khan, and that although Taylor said in a letter to the court on June 4 that he was firing Khan, he cannot. Only the court can make that change, the spokesman said. Taylor also said in his letter that he wanted to defend himself. But for that he will have to ask the court’s permission, and it may not be given, the spokesman said.

The court spokesman also said that a second defense lawyer was expected to join Khan. The Taylor defense team, paid by the court, at present includes two legal assistants and two researchers.

No one knows what happened to Taylor’s money. In the Nigerian city of Calabar, where Taylor lived in exile for three years under a deal in which he gave up power in 2003, he lived in style with a handful of luxurious villas for himself and his entourage.

In an earlier report last year, the UN panel of experts said evidence suggested that Taylor had “made significant investments in Nigeria, such as in real estate,” the report said.

But efforts to trace his fortune have bumped up against resistance in Nigeria, where the panel of experts says he has made a number of investments, and Liberia, where he is connected, through intermediaries, to one of the country’s biggest cellphone networks.

When Taylor was arrested as he tried to flee Nigeria last March, he had with him a large amount of cash, but that money has also disappeared, the report said.

In his time as a warlord and later as president of Liberia, Taylor extracted millions in exchange for tax breaks and a wide range of other favors for businessmen who hauled off billions’ worth of treasure from Sierra Leone and Liberia in the nearly two decades they spent embroiled in interconnected civil wars.

He built his first fortune as a government official in the 1980s, pocketing close to $1 million before fleeing an embezzling charge. He ended up in the United States, where he was arrested for extradition to Liberia but mysteriously escaped a Massachusetts prison.

After several years of wandering around Africa, including a spell in a Libyan militia training camp, he launched his offensive on Liberia from Ivory Coast in 1989. By wresting control of the most mineral- and timber-rich regions of the country, he gained, by some estimates, $100 million a year in the early 1990s.

The report details one such deal between Taylor and Natura Holding, which hauled thousands of tons of hardwoods from Liberia during the civil war. According to a 2001 statement of account from the Ministry of Finance of Liberia unearthed by researchers, a subsidiary of the timber company, Natura, was credited for paying $2 million in taxes on July 17, 2000. The next day, a deposit from Natura for almost the same amount appeared in Taylor’s personal account, according to a bank statement.

“Millions more may have been deposited into Taylor’s accounts, but definitive information on the ownership of these bank accounts has been difficult to obtain,” the report said.

He is believed to have entered into similar deals with Oriental Timber, which was partly owned by Guus van Kouwenhoven, a Dutch businessman convicted in a Dutch court in 2006 of smuggling arms for Taylor. He was but one of a number of businessmen suspected of helping funnel arms for Taylor’s insurgents and later his army to fuel the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Former Liberian leader’s personal fortune still exists, panel suggests – International Herald Tribune

One way to avoid being brought to justice – or, more precisely, to avoid facing the music of court proceedings the whole world will be watching – is simply not to show up for your trial at all.

That’s what Liberia’s former warlord-turned-president, Charles Ghankay Taylor did yesterday in The Hague, Holland, where he skipped the opening day of his trial at the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone. Taylor, who led rebel forces that controlled much of Liberia in the early 1990s, became the west-African country’s elected president in 1997. Two years later, “he faced accusations from the United Nations that he was a gun runner and a diamond smuggler….” (BBC)

However, it is for his alleged role in neighboring Sierra Leone’s civil war that he has been summoned before the special international court. The global, human-rights advocacy organization Human Rights Watch notes that Taylor, who served as Liberia’s president until 2003, “is being tried on 11 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious violations of international law committed during Sierra Leone’s conflict.” Taylor’s alleged crimes include “murdering and mutilating civilians, using women and girls as sex slaves, and abducting both adults and children and making them perform forced labor or become fighters.” (HRW report in the Standard Times Press, Sierra Leone)

The charges against the notorious Liberian warlord-politician stem from his supposed role as a supporter of the Revolutionary United Front, a rebel group in Sierra Leone, and his alleged association with another fighting group, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council. He also allegedly “was responsible for Liberian forces fighting in support of the Sierra Leonean rebels,” and Liberian forces under Taylor’s command have been “implicated in human-rights abuses in other West African states, including Liberia, Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire, although these are not at issue” in the current trial. (HRW report in the Standard Times Press, Sierra Leone; see also Angola Press)

Although the special, U.N.-backed court, whose judges and staffers come from Sierra Leone and other countries, is based in Freetown, the capital of the small country on the west coast of Africa, Taylor’s trial is taking place in The Hague on account of security concerns. Because the governments of Liberia and Sierra Leone feared Taylor’s trial could lead to violence in Freetown, its location was changed last year. Nevertheless, China’s Xinhua news service reports, “Many witnesses will testify anonymously for fear of revenge from Taylor’s supporters,” and some “will be put in witness-protection schemes after giving evidence.” Meanwhile, the ex-president’s supporters “insist that Taylor has been made a scapegoat for the wrongdoings of others.”

Tens of thousands were killed or mutilated in Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war, in which Taylor allegedly played a big role

The Liberian newspaper the Analyst notes that Taylor’s trial will “demonstrate to despots” everywhere “that the world is a global village, and that that village cannot condone injustice and a culture of impunity….The trial is expected to last until December 2008, with a judgment likely by mid-2009. Prosecutors have indicated they plan to call up to 139 core witnesses.”

Amnesty International, the human-rights advocacy group, has stated: “It is vitally important that this landmark trial is communicated to victims of the crimes being prosecuted….” The Analyst notes that A.I. has described Taylor’s trial “as the first time a former head of state or government has been prosecuted in an international criminal court for crimes committed in Africa against Africans….”

Yesterday, in his absence, Taylor’s lawyer read a letter from his client. Addressed to the court, it stated: “I cannot participate in a charade that does no justice to the people of Liberia and Sierra Leone….I choose not to be a fig leaf of legitimacy for this court.” (Reuters; also Agence France Presse in Libération)

Link to SFGate: World Views : Sierra Leone

Former Liberian president Charles Taylor has refused to appear before the UN-backed court trying him for war crimes in The Hague.
Facing trial on charges for an array of crimes including rape, terrorism, mass murder and rape during the Sierra Leone civil war, Mr Taylor said he believed the court was not giving him a fair trial.
In a statement issued as the trial got underway through his lawyer, Karim Khan, he pointed to a lack of legal resources for his defence.
“I am driven to conclude that I will not receive a fair trial before the special court at this time and I must decline to attend hearings,” the statement said.
“I cannot take part in this charade that does injustice to the people of Liberia and the people of Sierra Leone.”
Mr Taylor has denied all the charges relating to his participation in the 1991-2002 Sierra Leone civil war laid against him.
He was ousted from power in 2003 after having himself led a rebellion in the country in 1989. After being arrested in Nigeria last year he was deported to face trial in the Netherlands

Link to Liberia’s Taylor rejects Hague trial

THE HAGUE (Reuters) – Liberia’s former President Charles Taylor boycotted the opening of his trial in The Hague for war crimes in Sierra Leone on Monday, saying he had lost faith in the U.N.-backed court.

“I cannot participate in a charade that does no justice to the people of Liberia and Sierra Leone,” the Liberian warlord said in a letter read by a defense lawyer, who said Taylor now wanted to represent himself.

“I choose not to be a figleaf of legitimacy for this court,” Taylor said in the letter.

Taylor, 59, faces charges of instigating murder, rape, mutilation and the recruitment of child soldiers in the 1991-2002 civil war that left 50,000 dead.

He has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in a case that prosecutors and human rights campaigners hope will send a signal that nobody can escape punishment for atrocities, including heads of state.

Even among Africa’s horrific wars, the fighting in Sierra Leone stood out for its exceptional brutality — casual murder, mass rapes, the hacking of limbs from civilians and the press ganging of child soldiers as young as eight.

Presiding Justice Julia Sebutinde said the trial would continue despite Taylor’s failure to attend, as the session quickly got bogged in legal arguments that delayed the prosecution’s opening presentation.

“Sanity will return to this court,” Sebutinde commented at one point. 

Prosecutors state in the indictment that Taylor sought to gain control of Sierra Leone’s mineral wealth, particularly its diamond mines, and destabilize the Freetown government, to boost his own regional influence.

They argue that Taylor supported and directed Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels as they carried out a campaign of terror against Sierra Leone’s civilians. Prosecutors say he failed to use his power to prevent war crimes being committed.

Taylor’s defense does not dispute the horrors, but says he was not giving orders to fighters in Sierra Leone, supplying weapons to the rebels or recruiting child soldiers.

It says the prosecution cannot prove his involvement during the period of the charges, which start from 1996, and says his contacts with the RUF after that were solely aimed at bringing regional peace.

Taylor invaded Liberia with a rebel force in 1989 to end a dictatorship and was elected president in 1997. His enemies regrouped abroad and their fighters forced him from Monrovia in 2003, first to refuge in Nigeria.

Taylor was handed over by the Nigerians under international pressure. In the past, ousted African rulers often lived out their lives in comfortable exile.

The Special Court aims to complete Taylor’s trial quickly and hopes to avoid the disappointment felt when former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic died months before a verdict after a trial of more than four years.

Link to Liberia’s Taylor absent as war crimes trial starts | Reuters

On June 4, the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor will begin in The Hague. Mr. Taylor faces 11 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international humanitarian law for his role in the decade-long civil war that engulfed Sierra Leone. This trial at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, along with those of nine others from the three main factions involved in the war, is part of the international community’s efforts to bring to justice those who bear the greatest responsibility for the atrocities committed.

While many see the Special Court and the trial of Charles Taylor as a triumph for international justice, what, if anything, does this mean for justice in Sierra Leone? The president of Sierra Leone, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, has stated on numerous occasions that justice is a prerequisite to ensuring peace in Sierra Leone. He requested the creation of the Special Court on this basis. But surely this cannot be limited to justice as meted out by the Special Court. Ensuring peace must mean creating a fair, humane and accessible justice system for all Sierra Leoneans, not just the 10 individuals tried before the Special Court. As the Taylor trial begins and Mr. Kabbah’s term in office comes to an end, it is worth looking at what his government has done to ensure justice in Sierra Leone. Beyond the trial of Mr. Taylor, is Sierra Leone well on its way toward a peaceful future or a few steps away from a new conflict?
    

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), created in 2002, found that one of the root causes of the war was an absolute failure of governance, and that the government was largely irrelevant to the Sierra Leonean people. Disturbingly, the TRC detected no sense of urgency among government officials to address the immense challenges facing the country, including those within the justice sector. This is a deeply troubling revelation and a damning indictment against a government that has consistently espoused the need for justice to ensure lasting peace in Sierra Leone.
    When the Special Court began operating in Freetown in 2003, half a kilometer away in the Pademba Road maximum security prison, hundreds of ex-combatants waited for their trials to begin in connection with war-related incidents. Their detention and subsequent trials in 2005 were characterized by gross judicial abuses, detention without charges, a lack of defense counsel, the taking of statements under severe duress and physical abuse that resulted in a number of deaths. These lower ranking former rebels, some former child soldiers, faced the death penalty as an outcome of a trial with few, if any, judicial guarantees. Meanwhile, those considered “most responsible” were being tried at the Special Court, an international court where millions of dollars have been invested for prosecution, defense and the proper functioning of trials with no possibility of a death sentence. The disparities were alarming in 2003 and remain the same today.
    

The international community has invested millions of dollars toward improving the justice sector. But without the leadership and commitment of the Kabbah government, change is exceedingly slow. Appeals cannot be heard because there is no paper to type out the trial record. It can take months, even years to locate a case file as there is no discernible system of record keeping. Court and prison officials appear to be motivated by bribes and little else. In Pademba Road prison, it is not uncommon to find people serving four- to five-year prison terms because they cannot pay the alternative $150 fine. This is not justice. This is criminalizing poverty.
    

Perhaps one of the most striking examples of the empty legacy of Mr. Kabbah within the justice sector is that in Sierra Leone one can get the death penalty simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Take the case of nine former members of the Sierra Leone army. In December 2004, the High Court convicted them of treason and sentenced them to death. A number of those convicted were guilty only of being present at the barracks where the alleged treason attempt was made. The death sentence was imposed two months after the TRC report recommended immediate abolition of the death penalty. The government ignored these recommendations, though Mr. Kabbah has apparently given reassurances that the death penalty will not be used. That is little comfort for these men, living their lives in cells just steps away from the door that will lead them to their death, waiting for an appeal that the court seems to have no interest in hearing.
    

This week the prosecutor will open his case against Mr. Taylor, a massive step forward toward justice in Sierra Leone. In August, Mr. Kabbah’s term in office finishes. Some might say that his presidency has left behind many lasting legacies. But ensuring justice for all Sierra Leoneans will certainly not be one of them. And sadly, this does not bode well for the future of Sierra Leone.

Link to Justice for Sierra Leone? - Editorials/Op-Ed - The Washington Times, America’s Newspaper

THE HAGUE, May 7 (Reuters) – The U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone has learned the lessons from other tribunals and is ready for a rapid war crimes trial for former Liberian President Charles Taylor, the court’s prosecutor said on Monday.

Taylor, indicted on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for stoking civil war in Sierra Leone through an illicit trade in guns for diamonds, is going on trial in The Hague on June 4.

He was moved to The Hague in June 2006 due to fears a trial in Freetown could spur unrest in Sierra Leone or Liberia.

The court’s prosecutor Stephen Rapp told Reuters he expected the trial to be concluded in about 18 months.

“That’s a very rapid period,” he said. “In other cases like that of (former Yugoslav President Slobodan) Milosevic it took four years and didn’t complete. But we believe that the judges have learned lessons and we have from those past experiences.”

“The crucial thing is that we want to focus this case and not call one more live witness than we need to.”

Milosevic died in jail in March last year before a verdict was reached in his marathon war crimes trial, prompting a storm of criticism about the fact his case was allowed to drag on for more than four years.

WASTE NO TIME

The Sierra Leone court held a pre-trial conference on the Taylor case on Monday, agreeing to sit five days a week with limited breaks.

“The judges certainly sent a signal that they want to work very very hard on this case. They also recognise the fact that to hear all these evidence will take some time, so they are keen not to waste any time,” Rapp said.

The court indicted Taylor in March 2003 on 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity but condensed the charges to 11 counts in March 2006 to ensure a more focused trial.

Taylor’s rise to power in 1989 led to a 14-year, on-and-off civil war in Liberia that spilled across regional borders. He fled into exile in Nigeria in 2003 but was returned to Liberia and transferred to the court in Sierra Leone in March 2006.

The court initially set April 2 as a tentative start date for the trial but later postponed it to June 4 because defence lawyers requested more time to prepare.

Taylor was present in court on Monday, wearing sun glasses because of an eye problem, his lawyers said.

Rapp said Taylor was generally in good health and his case was not complicated by health problems like that of Milosevic but the trial faced challenges in bringing witnesses and victims on a different continent.

The prosecution plans to present evidence from about 201 witnesses from Liberia and the region. Almost all of them have been guaranteed protection, Rapp said.

Taylor’s defence lawyers expressed concerns that some of their witnesses might not be able to come to The Hague because of travel bans imposed on them by the U.N. Security Council dating from the time when Taylor was still a president.

Proceedings on the case are being held in the premises of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is not involved in the trial. The Security Council authorised Taylor’s transfer after Britain said it would jail him if he is found guilty.

Link to News | Africa – Reuters.com