IRIN report Mar 29, 2006 - excerpt:
UN peacekeepers delivered handcuffed former Liberian president Charles Taylor into the custody of a UN-backed Special Court in Sierra Leone on Wednesday where he will be the first former African head of state to face prosecution for war crimes before an international tribunal.
A UN helicopter brought Taylor from the Liberian capital Monrovia directly to the landing pad of the Special Court in Freetown where officials whisked him directly to his waiting cell.
Nigerian police captured Taylor, who is indicted on 17 counts of war crimes, on Tuesday after he disappeared from the mansion where he was living in exile in the south of the country.
Taylor was detained Tuesday night in Borno state in northeastern Nigeria, Information Minister Frank Nweke told reporters. Authorities immediately informed Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo who is on a visit to the United States and the Nigerian leader ordered Taylor's immediate deportation to Liberia.
"Taylor was received as soon as he landed and the UNMIL peacekeepers read him his rights and he was handcuffed by peacekeepers," Liberia's chief prosecutor, Tiaon Gongloe told reporters after Taylor's departure in a white UN helicopter.
A UN Security Council resolution late last year mandated UN peacekeepers in Liberia "to apprehend and detain former president Charles Taylor" in the event of his return to Liberian territory and depose him with the Special Court in Sierra Leone.
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