Human Rights Watch has called on Nigeria to take former Liberian President Charles Taylor into custody to ensure he does not flee.
Nigeria said it would transfer former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who is living in exile in Nigeria and has been indicted for war crimes, to Liberian custody, the Nigerian government said last night.
The former warlord is seen as the mastermind behind once intertwined civil wars in Liberia and neighbouring Sierra Leone, where a special UN-backed court wants to try him for supporting brutal rebels in exchange for diamonds.
"President Olusegun Obasanjo has today ... informed President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf that the government of Liberia is free to take former President Charles Taylor into its custody," the Nigerian government said in a statement.
Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia's first post-war president who took office in January, had asked Nigeria to consider handing over Taylor so he could stand trial at the Sierra Leone court.
Johnson-Sirleaf made no public comment after arriving home on Saturday from the United States, whose government has campaigned vociferously for Taylor to stand trial. A Liberian official said there was no indication yet of when Taylor might be transferred.
Taylor's departure was part of a peace deal to end 14 years of civil war in Liberia which killed 250,000 people, spawned a generation of young gunmen and spread violence to nearby states.
"It is a remarkable day for the Special Court and it is a defining day in international criminal justice," said Desmond de Silva, chief prosecutor at the court in Sierra Leone.
"It will take a little time, two to three days; I would hope no longer than that," he said of Taylor's transfer to the court.
Many in Liberia and Sierra Leone fear that Taylor's return could reopen old wounds, undermining a fragile peace.
Liberian security forces arrested around a dozen Taylor associates on Friday including former bodyguards and fighters.
A senior member of Taylor's National Patriotic Party (NPP) said the arrests were linked to widespread speculation in Monrovia that Taylor supporters may try to stage a coup.
Taylor's spiritual adviser Kilari Anand Paul, who has been campaigning against his return on the grounds that it could spark renewed killing, said Taylor told him that his supporters would try to assassinate Johnson-Sirleaf.