Global Policy Forum

A Sierra Leone war crimes tribunal, hoping to close in on indicted Liberian President Charles Taylor, has asked the United Nations to make its order to grab him legally binding on all governments, diplomats said on Wednesday. Stronger powers for the Sierra Leone special court, which last week disclosed it had indicted the Liberian head of state for fueling more than a decade of civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone, would require U.N. Security Council approval. But council diplomats said the court request would have to take a backseat for now to international efforts to reach a cease-fire in Liberia, where rebel fighters have pushed to the outskirts of the capital Monrovia.

The request came in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan from the court president, Justice Geoffrey Robertson, complaining about difficulties in obtaining international cooperation, diplomats and court officials said. Robertson said the court's authority should derive from Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which would legally require all nations to cooperate with it. His request came after Taylor managed to evade a court attempt to have him arrested in the Ghanaian capital Accra, where he had traveled to attend Liberian peace talks.

Rather than arrest him, as requested, the authorities let him fly home on a Ghanaian government plane. Before leaving, Taylor had told the talks he was prepared to step down if it would help bring peace to his country.

U.N. officials said Annan had received the court letter but had neither responded nor distributed it to Security Council members. The council was unlikely to take up the court request while it was pressing for an end to the fighting in Liberia, said one council diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It would be premature to discuss the request at this time," the diplomat said. "We are trying first to get the peace process going, and we don't want to do anything that would derail efforts to get a cease-fire."

Closed-Door Talks

Council members, meanwhile, held closed-door talks on the situation in Liberia and afterward issued a statement welcoming Taylor's announcement he might step down and urged Liberians to work together to create a transitional government. Offering support for the court following its indictment of Taylor, council members also "expressed the need to ensure both peace and justice are achieved in Sierra Leone."

Separately, the court issued an unusual appeal on Wednesday in the Sierra Leone capital Freetown for a country to take in ailing indicted rebel leader Foday Sankoh. Sankoh, accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity over atrocities committed by his Revolutionary United Front fighters in Sierra Leone, was in a catatonic state when first taken into the court's custody last March and is currently incapable of walking, talking or feeding himself, according to court medical officer Donald Harding. Sierra Leone lacks the equipment to diagnose his ailments and treat him, Harding said. While Sankoh is under a U.N. travel ban for his role in the war, the Security Council likely would lift the ban if a country agreed to take him in for treatment, said Robin Vincent, the court registrar.

Some 200,000 people died in the war, which was marked by brutal atrocities against civilians including mass rapes and amputations. The conflict was declared over in January 2002.

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