Monrovia - Liberia dropped espionage charges against four members of a British television crew yesterday and said they would be released immediately.
President Charles Taylor said in a live interview with CNN monitored in London that the Channel Four journalists and their employer had apologised to the nation.
"We have now decided to look at the appeal and the apology and to have them released immediately," Mr Taylor said. The Liberian Justice Minister, Mr Eddington Varmah, told a news conference he had decided "on humanitarian grounds" not to pursue charges against the television crew - two Britons, a Sierra Leonean and a South African.