Taylor detained in U.N. cell
Unshaven and looking haggard, former Liberian President Charles Taylor was placed in a detention cell in Sierra Leone on Wednesday, after his early morning arrest trying to flee Nigeria carrying large bags of cash.
He will be the first former African leader to face international justice for war crimes that include forcible recruitment of child soldiers, murder, rape, mutilation and sexual enslavement of civilians in a decade of civil war in Sierra Leone that ended in 2002 with more than 50,000 dead.
A U.N. helicopter carrying Taylor, escorted by two other helicopters, landed in the compound of the U.N. Special Court on Sierra Leone.
Handcuffed and wearing a bulletproof vest over a white tunic, Taylor stepped out and was hustled into an SUV and driven about 100 yards to the door of the detention center.
Taylor was arrested shortly after 5 a.m. in a Land Rover carrying two large sacks of currency, including U.S. dollars, at Nigeria’s border with Cameroon.
Rome
Afghan Christian will get asylum
The Afghan convert to Christianity who faced a possible death penalty in his homeland for renouncing Islam has arrived in Italy where he will be granted political asylum, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Wednesday.
Berlusconi said the man, Abdul Rahman, is in the hands of the country’s Interior Ministry, which is in charge of immigration.
An Afghan court on Sunday dismissed the case against Rahman, who converted to Christianity 16 years ago while working in Pakistan. The government freed him on Monday. Rahman’s possible execution brought worldwide appeals for clemency from Western governments, including the United States, and religious leaders.
The Afghan government has come under criticism for its actions. Five hundred Muslim clerics gathered in a mosque in the Afghan city of Qalad to protest Rahman’s release. The Afghan parliament also condemned his liberation as a breach of Islamic law.
Baikonur, Kazakhstan
Rocket heading to space station
A Russian Soyuz rocket streaked into the skies over the Central Asian steppe today, launching a U.S.-Russian-Brazilian crew on a mission to the International Space Station.
Russian Pavel Vinogradov and American Jeffrey Williams were to stay on board the station for about six months. Brazil’s first man in space, Marcos C. Pontes, will stay at the station for nine days before returning to Earth on April 9 with the station’s current crew of Russian Valery Tokarev and American Bill McArthur.
The Soyuz TMA 8 spacecraft is due to dock at the station early Saturday.