Rebel Reportedly Killed by Rivals Meets With Press : Liberia: Prince Johnson laughs at claims that he was slain but opponents still insist he is ‘a corpse.’

Rivals said Tuesday that they had killed Prince Johnson, who leads one of two rebel factions fighting the government, but Johnson met with journalists hours later and laughed at the claims.

Charles Taylor, Johnson’s rival in the yearlong battle to oust President Samuel K. Doe, claimed Tuesday morning that his fighters had killed Johnson in an ambush.

Before Johnson turned up, a man identifying himself as the rebel leader called the British Broadcasting Corp. in London and shouted: “Taylor’s a liar! I am alive!”

Taylor’s spokesman and defense minister, Tom Woewiyu, announced Johnson’s death and said the body would be exhibited. It was not.

At the State Department’s daily briefing in Washington, spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said: “We have a reliable source this morning that told us they have seen him today . . . alive.”

Woewiyu, asked about the call to the BBC during an interview, said that anyone who spoke with Johnson was “talking with a corpse.”

Rebel officers at Taylor headquarters on the Firestone rubber plantation 37 miles southeast of Monrovia said a commander named Oliver Varney had led the alleged ambush.

Woewiyu, who speaks for Taylor’s National Patriotic Front, told reporters in Abidjan, capital of the neighboring Ivory Coast, by telephone that Johnson had been killed on Bushrod Island when trying to leave Monrovia.

Taylor and Johnson fell out three months ago in their campaign against Doe. Since then, each has threatened to kill the other.

An African peacekeeping force appeared Tuesday to be facing further delays.

Troops from Ghana, Nigeria, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Gambia have gathered in neighboring Sierra Leone, but there was no sign of an early departure.

Woewiyu said Taylor would fly to Banjul, Gambia, this week to talk with President Dawda Jawara, head of an African mediation committee trying to end the civil war, which began Dec. 24. That seemed likely to delay arrival of the peacekeepers.

Meanwhile, more than 100 foreigners evacuated Sunday from Liberia by the U.S. military began arriving in Sierra Leone.

The first batch of 27 was shuttled into Freetown by helicopter Tuesday morning from the carrier Saipan. U.S. officials said the rest would arrive at two-hour intervals.