Taylor arrives for war crimes trial

Taylor will be held at the ICC's Scheveningen detention unit. Picture / Reuters.

AMSTERDAM/FREETOWN - Former Liberian president Charles Taylor has arrived in the Netherlands to face trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, airport officials have said.

"He arrived in Rotterdam and was picked up by officials from the Foreign Ministry," an airport official said.

Taylor will be held at the ICC's Scheveningen detention unit.

He faces 11 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for backing Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front rebels, whose drugged child soldiers killed, mutilated and raped civilians during the West African country's 1990s civil war.

Taylor was flown in a UN helicopter to the country's main airport at Lungi from the compound of the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, which has charged him with war crimes and will conduct his trial in The Hague.

"I talked to Mr Taylor briefly. We didn't discuss his case, we joked around a little bit and I wished him a safe journey," court spokesman Peter Andersen said after Taylor's departure.

The Freetown-based court said its registrar, security chief and medical officer had accompanied Taylor on the flight.

"This means that the focus can now be on the trial against Taylor, who is accused of serious war crimes," Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot said in a statement.

"This is a signal from the international community that exemption from punishment will not be tolerated."

Sierra Leone's Vice-President Solomon Berewa welcomed the news. "We are now satisfied that he is going to be tried in a well secured area by the Netherlands while we in Sierra Leone and the Mano River Union states will continue to consolidate our peace," he told Reuters.

The Mano River Union is made up of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, which were all dragged into a spiral of violence in the 14 years after Taylor began Liberia's civil war in 1989.

"All I think Sierra Leoneans were interested in was to see Taylor arrested and charged, which has been done," Berewa added.

Taylor's half-brother Adolphus Taylor was disappointed.

"We are downhearted. They had told us that Mr Taylor will be transferred on Wednesday but instead they transferred him today. We just don't know what's happening. We do not know whether he will get a fair trial," he said, from Monrovia.

Years of war in Liberia finally came to an end after Taylor agreed to go into exile in Nigeria in 2003. Caught trying to leave Nigeria earlier this year as pressure mounted for him to be tried, he was transferred to the Special Court and charged.

Liberia's President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf said of his move to The Hague on Tuesday local time: "We hope that it will help us put the past behind us. We are looking forward. We are concentrating on the 3 million Liberians who need our help."

The Netherlands agreed to host the trial after Britain promised last week to hold Taylor if he was sentenced to jail.

- REUTERS