NIGERIA: Charles Taylor, Liberia's former leader, has disappeared from his safe haven in Nigeria days before he was due to be transferred to a war crimes court.
Nigeria said yesterday that Mr Taylor had slipped his minders at his villa in the southeastern town of Calabar on Monday night.
Just 48 hours earlier, Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo had agreed to a request from Liberia to surrender Mr Taylor, whom he had granted exile under a 2003 peace deal.
Remi Oyo, a spokeswoman for Mr Obasanjo, said the president had set up a panel to investigate whether Mr Taylor "escaped or was abducted".
"All the security people who were in charge of looking after Mr Taylor have been arrested," she said.
Mr Taylor's disappearance confirmed the worst fears of human rights groups and prosecutors, who had warned that he could escape if he was not detained by the Nigerian authorities.
Journalists who visited Mr Taylor's riverside villa last week reported that there was very little security in evidence.
But despite repeated requests from the US and the UN-backed special court in Sierra Leone, which has indicted Mr Taylor for fuelling a war there, Nigeria refused to arrest him and maintained that it was up to Liberia to "take him into custody".
Mr Taylor's escape is embarrassing for President Obasanjo, who is due to visit the US tomorrow.
The US is understood to have pressurised Liberia's president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, into requesting Mr Taylor's extradition.
Nigeria's acquiescence took many observers by surprise, as it sent a message to some other African leaders that they could no longer take life in exile for granted.
News of the disappearance will be greeted with dismay in Liberia, which is struggling to restore normality after a 14-year civil war.
Mr Taylor is known to have supporters there, who have threatened a return to the chaos that marked his rule.
Kilari Anand Paul, an Indian-American evangelist who describes himself as the former leader's "spiritual adviser", told AFP news agency yesterday that Mr Taylor had agreed to stand trial in The Hague.
"He has also agreed to go to Liberia, but he has totally refused to go to Sierra Leone and face charges there," said Mr Paul.
Mr Taylor, he said, had submitted political asylum requests to Syria, Libya, Venezuela and Ethiopia.
In Sierra Leone, Mr Taylor stands accused of supporting rebels notorious for hacking off the limbs of civilians, in exchange for diamonds to finance the Liberian conflict. The two conflicts claimed an estimated 300,000 lives and spawned a generation of child soldiers.
Many in both Liberia and Sierra Leone fear that the return of Mr Taylor, who is believed to have considerable personal wealth and who still commands some grassroots support, could undermine a fragile peace.