Taylor indicts Liberia president Sirleaf-Johnson

Former warlord and Liberia president Charles Taylor indicted the sitting president of Liberia Sirleaf Johnson for fully supporting the uprising to unseat slain president Samuel Doe. Speaking at his trial in The Hague, he said Sirleaf was not only a financier but a founding member of his movement.

In his testimony as a self-witness, Taylor said: “Ah…Ellen raised most of the money that we needed for all of this movement in the early stage and even, doing combat.” He was responding to questions from his lead defense counsel Courtenay Griffith.

Taylor is facing 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in neighboring Sierra Leone during that country’s noxious civil unrest. Taylor, 61, also claimed during his Wednesday testimony that his November 1985 escape from Plymouth, Massachusetts maximum prison in the US may have been the work of American CIAs.

Taylor had been placed behind bars after the government of Liberia filed an extradition charge against him for allegedly stealing closed to a million dollars while serving as Director of the Liberia’s General Services Agency during the Samuel Doe military junta in the early 1980s.

He told the jammed UN Special Court for Sierra Leone sitting in The Hague that he was released from the prison days to his extradition trial and did not breakout as has been believed. He said he was whisked by a guard and taken to New York before moving to Mexico and then to Africa to begin training in Libya with his 68 recruits who, after evading the country, swelled into a full blown guerrilla movement before destabilizing the entire country.

The former Liberian dictator on Tuesday took the witness stand for the first time since his trial started in January 2008. He described all 11 charges against him as “lies”.

In his opening statement during the opening of the court, Taylor’s lead lawyer Griffith told the special court “Charles Taylor is not a war criminal but a peacemaker turned scapegoat by the international community”.

Additional reporting : AllAfrica

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Posted by Dave Fish Eagle on July 17, 2009. Filed under Politics & Foreign. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.