Interpol has issued a global arrest warrant today for former leader of Liberia Mr Charles Ghankay Taylor.
The so-called Red Notice warrant for Mr Taylor states he is wanted for "crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions."
Mr Taylor (55) has been indicted for alleged war crimes by a UN-backed court in Sierra Leone. He has lived in exile in southern Nigeria since early August, when he fled, under international pressure, as rebels laid siege to the Liberian capital of Monrovia.
Interpol's red notices allow warrants to be circulated worldwide, with a request that the wanted person be arrested so they can be extradited.
Although a red notice cannot force countries to arrest or extradite a suspect, it announces that the Lyon-based international police organisation is satisfied that an arrest is justified.
A former warlord, Mr Taylor took Liberia into 14 years of conflict in 1989, when he led an initially small uprising to overthrow the government.