The untold story of Taylor’s
escape
•How he was betrayed, by spiritual adviser
By STEVE NWOSU, EMMA EMEOZOR (Lagos), and LUCKY NWANKWERE,
Abuja
Tuesday
April 4, 2006
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•Former
Liberian President, Mr. Charles Taylor
Photo: Sun News Publishing
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The prompt arrest of fleeing former Liberian President,
Mr. Charles Taylor by the Nigerian authorities has been attributed
more to the imminent loss of face which stared President Olusegun
Obasanjo in the face than any extra vigilance on the part
of the country’s security operatives.
Also, Taylor’s spiritual adviser, Kilari Anand Paul,
says the former Liberian leader was encouraged to flee by
Nigerian security agents, who also helped him to the border
before being abandoned.
Taylor was reportedly arrested as he tried to sneak out of
Nigeria through the main border post with Cameroun in Borno
State.
However, Daily Sun exclusively gathered that extra effort
to recapture Taylor was informed by the fact that President
Obasanjo was on the verge of returning from his on-and-off
US trip with the bruised ego of not being allowed to see President
George W. Bush as a result of the Taylor debacle.
The US authorities had insisted that the Nigerian leader would
not meet with his US counterpart unless he produced the former
warlord who was wanted to answer to charges of crimes against
humanity in the UN-backed tribunal in Sierra Leone.
According to a security source, soon after Obasanjo arrived
Washington from his engagement at the UN headquarters in New
York, preparatory to the session with Bush, a senior State
Department official whose name was given as Jim – in
company of another top official – visited the Nigerian
leader in his hotel. In no unclear language, the officials
were said to have told Obasanjo that he would not see Bush
unless he produced runaway Taylor.
The Americans, Daily Sun gathered, were acting on the theory
that the Nigerian authorities could not deny knowledge of
how Taylor left Nigeria without assistance. This was backed
by another security report that agents of the government had
actually provided Taylor with about $250,000 with which he
was supposed to bribe his way and live in appreciable comfort
wherever he would flee to.
With this in mind, and against the backdrop of the allegation
that Obasanjo had promised Taylor that he would not give him
up, the US government had seemingly concluded that Aso Rock
had a hand in the escape and decided not to have anything
to do with the Nigerian leader who had gone to Washington
hoping to use the meeting with Bush to shore up his declining
local profile.
So, torn between packing his bag and baggage and leaving Washington
without seeing Bush - to come home to meet the snigger of
‘sadistic’ detractors - or handing over Taylor
and returning as a global statesman, Obasanjo settled for
the latter.
The frantic efforts thereafter eventually led to the reported
arrest of Taylor at the Nigerian side of the border with Cameroun,
even though other sources told Daily Sun that the former warlord
had actually crossed over but was still being escorted by
Nigerian details.
Taylor, on Monday not only pleaded not guilty to the 11 charges
brought against him, but also said he does not recognize the
jurisdiction of the court.
Dressed in a dark suit and a red tie to match, the former
Liberian warlord told the judge, Justice Richard Lussick,
“I do not recognize the jurisdiction of this court.”
Taylor was arraigned before the UN-backed Special Sierra Leone
Court sitting in Freetown. He is facing 11-count charges of
war crimes and crimes against humanity. The charge centre
on his role in promoting terror in Sierra Leone’s civil
war, which lasted from 1991 to 2002.
According to reports, after the charges were read to him,
Taylor was asked whether he understood them. “Yes, I
do,” he replied, adding, however: “I think that
this is an attempt to continue to divide and rule the people
of Liberia and Sierra Leone and so most definitely, I am not
guilty.”
Taylor met with his lawyers on Monday for the first time.
Earlier, he told the court that he could not enter a plea
because he did not recognize its right to try him. As if to
further plead his innocence, Taylor told the judge, “I
did not and could not have” committed the atrocities
that allegedly occurred during Sierra Leone’s civil
war.
The court adjourned without fixing new date for his next appearance.
Meanwhile, six days after his dramatic capture in Gambouru-Ngala,
Borno State, Taylor has accused President Olusegun Obasanjo
of double-dealing, saying his once ‘amiable’ host,
betrayed him after encouraging him (Taylor) to flee Nigeria
in order to escape arrest. Nigeria denied the allegation.
Speaking through his spiritual adviser, Indian Evangelist
Kilari Anand Paul, Taylor revealed that Nigerian security
forces did not only encourage him to flee, but also helped
him to get to Gambouru-Ngala, adding that to his utter disbelief,
the same agents turned round and arrested him in a double
cross.
Paul, who resides in Houston, U.S., said Taylor revealed to
him details of what transpired in a telephone call from his
cell in Sierra Leone at the weekend. Recounting what Taylor
told him, the spiritual adviser said men of the Nigerian State
Security Services (SSS) brought two vehicles to the villa
where Taylor lived in Calabar on the night of March 28.
Paul said the security agents then escorted Taylor north and
released him “in the middle of nowhere.” When
Taylor asked, “Where are you guys going?” the
security agents told him (Taylor) that they received instructions
to leave him and they left.
Though dazed, Taylor was not discouraged. While he was making
efforts to cross into Cameroon, the same security agents “turned
up and arrested him,” Paul said, adding that Taylor
was asked to surrender and he obeyed because “they had
guns.”
According to CNN, when the authorities in Abuja were asked
to react to Taylor’s story, President Obasanjo’s
Special Assistant on Public Affairs, Femi Fani-Kayode, denied
the allegation. Fani-Kayode, who spoke with the Associated
Press (AP), said: “The story is a far-fetched figment
of his jaundiced imagination.” He described Taylor as
a man who “must have been reading too many James Bond
novels.”
The presidential aide said throughout the Taylor episode,
the president and the Federal Government behaved in a responsible,
responsive and decent manner by honouring all obligations,
adding “we did the right thing at the right time. We
did not betray anybody, neither do the Nigerian people nor
the Federal Government nor their president betray people”.
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