Taylor Supporters Try to Block Reconciliation Forum

The group, run by Taylor’s former national security advisor John Richardson, said they believe the public testimony could prejudice Taylor’s war crimes trial in The Hague, which is expected to begin in April 2007.



Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was inaugurated by the Liberian government earlier this year, began hearing testimony about the bloody Taylor years this month.



Taylor is widely considered to have started the conflict, which began in 1989 and ended in 2003 with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, CPA, in Accra, Ghana.



A section of the CPA established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, describing it as a “forum that will address issues of impunity, as well as an opportunity for both victims and perpetrators of human rights violations to share their experiences, in order to get a clear picture of the past to facilitate genuine healing and reconciliation”.



Over the last few weeks, damning statements about the Taylor regime have already come out.



At the truth commission’s first hearing, former Liberian soldier Mohammed Sheriff reportedly told how his comrades, acting on Taylor’s orders, had beaten Sierra Leonean warlord Sam “Maskita” Bokarie to death and executed 250 of his men.



The testimony of Sheriff and others like him could impact Taylor’s trial in The Hague, according to the Taylor supporters’ appeal to the Supreme Court.



“All testimony mentioning Mr Taylor’s name must be stopped,” Richardson told the reports. “Such testimony can be used against him.”



Taylor was indicted in March 2003 by the Special Court for Sierra Leone. According to the indictment, he is responsible for a ten-year conflict in that country which led to the displacement, mutilation and murder of tens of thousands of people. Taylor allegedly armed and trained rebels in Sierra Leone in exchange for diamonds.



Taylor was transferred to The Hague in June 2006.

Katherine Boyle is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.