Lagos — Former Liberian President Charles Taylor has said he was deceived by Nigeria into being arrested there in 2006.
Speaking at his war crimes trial in The Hague, he said former President Olusegun Obasanjo had reneged on a promise to let him leave the country freely.
Yesterday, he said he hoped he would live to look Obasanjo in the face one day and ask him to tell the truth about what happened. He also claimed a plot involving the UK and the US led to his indictment. Taylor is accused of backing rebels, who committed widespread atrocities throughout the 1990s in Liberia's neighbour Sierra Leone.
He was living in exile in Nigeria in 2006 when US pressure to put him on trial for alleged war crimes increased. Taylor now says Obasanjo - who is currently a United Nations peace envoy - told him lies that caused him to be arrested. The former Liberian leader told the Special Court for Sierra Leone yesteray that Obasanjo had earlier assured him he could leave the country freely.
"He lied to the world when he said I was escaping, and he knew nothing about it," he said. "Why he lied? I don't know, but as a brother and a friend, I think he ought to speak and tell the truth about it."
After Obasanjo said Liberia's new government was free to take Taylor into custody, the former Liberian leader suddenly disappeared while Obasanjo was on his way to Washington to meet his US counterpart, George W Bush.
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