THE NETHERLANDS: Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, was transferred to The Hague yesterday for a war crimes trial related to Sierra Leone's brutal civil war.
A UN helicopter took him from his jail in Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital, to a nearby airport. One hundred Irish soldiers were involved in the security operation.
The transfer paves the way for Taylor (58), to face 11 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for backing the Revolutionary United Front, a rebel group that killed and maimed thousands in the 90s.
The governments of Liberia and neighbouring Sierra Leone wanted him out of west Africa to prevent him creating instability by rousing supporters, many of them child soldiers. The Dutch foreign ministry said Taylor would be held at the jail of the international criminal court in Scheveningen, near The Hague.
The ICC will provide the court facilities but the trial will be conducted by Sierra Leone's special court, which will remain based in Freetown.
The Netherlands agreed to host the trial if a third country would jail Taylor in the event of him being convicted.
Last week Britain volunteered. A UN security council resolution authorising the transfer was swiftly drafted.
Taylor, accused of embezzling almost $1 million from government coffers, fled his homeland for the US in 1983.
He returned in 1989 to launch a rebellion which installed him as president in 1996 at the cost of 200,000 lives.
When Sierra Leone erupted in civil war he backed the rebels, many of them children high on drugs who were notorious for rape and mutilation. In return, he allegedly gained access to timber and diamond fields.