SUDAN: Interpol placed Charles Taylor on its "most wanted" list yesterday, boosting an international hunt to bring the former Liberian president to justice.
A "red notice" posted on the Interpol website accused Charles Ghankay Taylor of crimes against humanity and "grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions" during the long civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone.
The poster carried a photo of Mr Taylor in a suit and tie, accompanied by the warning: "Person may be dangerous." It continued: "If you have any information contact your national or local police."
Mr Taylor (55), has been living in exile in south western Nigeria since August, when a pounding rebel siege and intense international pressure forced him to step down.
The red notice should spark a flood of arrest warrants round the world, marking the latest gambit by prosecutors chasing the notorious former leader.
The move follows earlier indictment by the Special Court in Sierra Leone, which accuses Mr Taylor of trading guns for diamonds with the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels, whose signature atrocity was to chop off limbs.
The 17-count indictment also includes charges of terrorising civilians, sexual violence, use of child soldiers, abductions, forced labour, looting and burning, and attacks on peacekeepers.
The Sierra Leone prosecutor, Mr David Crane, said in a statement yesterday that the Interpol notice "will serve as a reminder that Charles Taylor remains a fugitive from justice" and that there is "no amnesty for war crimes or crimes against humanity." The move will also increase pressure on Nigeria's president Olusegun Obasanjo, who offered Mr Taylor exile in early August as American warships loomed off Liberia's coast and rebel guns pounded Monrovia.
As well as carrying out crimes in Sierra Leone, Mr Taylor is accused of stealing over $100 million from Liberia. His exile is being spent at a luxury villa in the coastal city of Calabar. But although deprived of his guns, Mr Taylor is left with one weapon - the mobile phone.
UN officials and his Nigerian hosts worry the famously wily leader is still meddling in Liberian politics through contact with loyal army officers and politicians, in breach of the exile agreement.
Concerns are rising he may try to deliver his pre-departure promise of "I will be back".