SIERRA LEONE: Irish troops serving with the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) transported the former dictator Charles Taylor to the war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone yesterday. Taylor will now stand trial at the UN Special Court in the Sierra Leone capital, Freetown.
A group of 100 Irish troops provided security at Roberts International Airport, Monrovia when Taylor arrived there yesterday on a flight from Nigeria. The former dictator was then transferred by the Irish on to a UN MI8 helicopter for the short flight to Freetown.
He was escorted on that flight by a group of 10 specially selected Irish troops, who handed Taylor over to the special court on arrival in Freetown. The Irish troops, who are part of a 480-strong Irish deployment in Liberia, remained in Freetown overnight. The full Irish contingent in Liberia forms a quick reaction force (QRF) with Swedish troops. There are 15,000 troops from around the world serving with UNMIL.
The QRF is on call 24 hours a day to respond to unrest which may develop in any part of Liberia and will be on standby to provide security for the court in Freetown.
The Irish troops have been given responsibility by the UN for formulating and, if necessary, executing an evacuation plan for the staff and inmates at the Special Court if the security situation in Freetown deteriorates in the coming months.
A former Northern Ireland barrister, Teresa Doherty, is a member of the court, which was jointly established by the UN and the government of Sierra Leone.
Called to the bar in 1978, Ms Doherty has served as a judge of the supreme and national courts in Papua New Guinea. She was also a life sentence review commissioner in Northern Ireland.
From 2003 to 2005 she served as a judge of the high court and the court of appeal of Sierra Leone before being appointed to the Special Court by UN secretary general Kofi Annan.