SIERRA LEONE: Charles Taylor, the fugitive former Liberian leader charged with war crimes, was captured as he tried to cross from Nigeria into Cameroon yesterday and immediately deported to Liberia. Mr Taylor had been on the run since Monday, when he left his safe haven in the south-eastern Nigerian town of Calabar.
His flight was prompted by Nigeria's decision at the weekend to give him up to face an international tribunal.
Police said Mr Taylor was captured early yesterday morning at the remote Gamboru-Ngala border post, 1,490 km north-east of Calabar. Eyewitness reports said Mr Taylor, who was wearing his customary white flowing robe, had been travelling with a woman and his son in a grey Range Rover with diplomatic licence plates.
"He passed through immigration, but when he reached customs [ officials] were suspicious and they insisted on searching the jeep, where they found a large amount of US dollars," Babagana Alhaji Kata, a local trader, told AFP. "After a further search they discovered he was Charles Taylor."
The flamboyant one-time rebel leader and Baptist lay preacher was taken to military barracks in Maiduguri, 110 km south of the border, and then flown to Liberia aboard a presidential jet. Irish UN troops were on standby to arrest Mr Taylor at Roberts International Airport in Monrovia and escort him to the UN-backed court in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Human rights groups welcomed the news of his arrest. Global Witness, a British investigative NGO, said: "The chance for regional security and the prospects for peace have increased."
The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, said: "I think his capture and being put on trial does not only close a chapter, but it also sends a powerful message to the region that impunity will not be allowed to stand, and would-be warlords will pay a price."
Mr Taylor (58) is set to become only the second head of state - after Slobodan Milosevic - to appear before an international court for alleged crimes against humanity. The special court in Sierra Leone has indicted him on 17 counts for backing Revolutionary United Front rebels notorious for hacking off the limbs of their victims in a decade-long civil war.
The conflicts in Sierra Leone and Liberia, financed by Mr Taylor using blood diamonds and timber, also spread into parts of Guinea and Ivory Coast, and cost tens of thousands of lives.
His capture and deportation yesterday caps an extraordinary few weeks for a man who many people thought would never face trial. He was granted exile in Nigeria in August 2003 when he quit as Liberia's president - an arrangement that helped bring peace to the country after 14 years of civil war and chaos.
Despite calls from human rights groups and the west to extradite Mr Taylor, Nigeria insisted it was bound to honour its agreement to give him sanctuary. His movements were restricted but he lived a comfortable life in his villa in Calabar, and was widely thought to be still meddling in Liberian politics.
When Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf became Liberia's democratically elected president in January Nigeria said it would consider giving up Mr Taylor if she made a formal request. After pressure from the US, which is pumping millions of dollars into rebuilding Liberia, she made the request earlier this month.
The Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, reluctantly agreed to the extradition on Saturday. But he said Liberia would be responsible for arresting Mr Taylor - a decision that allowed him time to plot his escape.