Prosecutor: Escape-Savvy Taylor Secure:

Posted By: Tom Braswell

By MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press Writer

Now, Taylor is being carefully guarded to make sure he doesn't escape again, his chief prosecutor told The Associated Press on Friday.

Prosecutor Desmond de Silva also said security concerns had prompted officials to request that Taylor's trial be moved to Europe, where it would remain under the auspices of the Special Court established in Sierra Leone to try those believed to bear the greatest responsibility for atrocities committed during this country's 1991-2002 civil war.

Taylor is accused of backing Sierra Leonean rebels notorious for raping and maiming civilians by chopping off their arms, legs, ears and lips. He is charged with 11 counts of crimes against humanity.

Taylor's 1989 insurgency in Liberia, which eventually killed 200,000, helped tilt West Africa into crisis.

"Charles Taylor has been a regional warlord at the epicenter of the destabilization of the whole region," de Silva said, noting that new Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf had expressed concern in a speech about her predecessor's supporters using the trial as a pretext to launch an uprising.

"If the security and peace of Liberia is imperiled, it could well spill over into Sierra Leone, and thereupon all trials would come to an end," de Silva said.

De Silva, who once called Taylor an "escapologist," said the court complex where he has been held since his arrest Wednesday was guarded by Mongolian troops. He called in an extra contingent of Irish troops and could call in more.

"I take the view that at this moment in time, the detention facility in the court is secure, and I think Mr. Taylor would find it extremely difficult to escape," de Silva said.

De Silva also said it would be difficult for anyone who might want to harm Taylor to get to him. De Silva dismissed concern expressed by Taylor's relatives about his safety in custody, noting, "We don't go around killing people."

While Special Court officials have requested the trial be moved to The Hague, his first appearance before judges was to be in Sierra Leone's capital Monday. De Silva said Taylor would be read the charges against him — 11 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes — and be asked to plead.

"If he pleads guilty, trial will be fairly short," de Silva said. "If he pleads not guilty," it could take months.

Officials were working out the logistics of moving the trial to The Hague.

The Dutch government has said a resolution by the U.N. Security Council would give a solid legal basis for changing the venue. Britain circulated a draft resolution, drawn up in consultation with Dutch diplomats, later Friday.

Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesman Dirk-Jan Vermeij said officials also were discussing where Taylor would be held during the trial and if he is convicted.

Taylor was accused in 1983 of embezzling nearly $1 million and fled to the United States, where he was detained on a Liberian arrest warrant. He escaped from a Massachusetts jail in 1985 — cutting through bars with a hacksaw — to launch Liberia's civil war.

Taylor fled to exile in Nigeria in 2003 as part of a deal to end fighting in Liberia. Nigeria, under pressure from the United States and others, said last week it would hand Taylor over to the U.N. court but made no move to arrest him, and he fled.

Nigerian police captured him trying to slip across the northern border into Cameroon. He reportedly had two 110-pound sacks filled with dollars and euros.

While the Sierra Leone tribunal's charges refer only to the war there, Taylor also has been accused of backing rebel fighters elsewhere in West Africa and of harboring al-Qaida suicide bombers who attacked the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, killing more than 200 people.

His son, Charles McArthur Emmanuel, was arrested Thursday by U.S. authorities in Miami. According to an affidavit filed in federal court in Miami, Emmanuel, a U.S. citizen, led Liberian forces who were responsible for Taylor's security until he went into exile in 2003. Emmanuel, 29, also known as Charles "Chuckie" Taylor Jr., was on a United Nations list of Liberians whose travel was restricted.

Emmanuel appeared in federal court Friday on a charge of passport fraud, said Barbara Gonzalez, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman.

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Associated Press Writer Anthony Deutsch contributed to this report from The Hague, Netherlands.

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