Hurdle Cleared for Trial of Taylor

The British government said Thursday that it is willing to imprison former Liberian President Charles Taylor if he is convicted of war crimes, breaking an impasse that had stalled his trial before an international tribunal.

Taylor is accused of supporting the Revolutionary United Front rebels in Sierra Leone, including buying weapons for them with money from selling diamonds mined in the rebels’ territory. The group was notorious for hacking off limbs of civilians during the 11-year civil war.

The United Nations-backed war crimes court in Sierra Leone asked that Taylor’s trial be moved to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the Netherlands, because of fears that proceedings in Sierra Leone would invite violence.

The Netherlands agreed to take Taylor’s trial, but only if he left the country after the judgment was delivered. Several countries refused to take him if he was convicted. If he is acquitted, he will be free to leave the Netherlands.

“If we want to live in a just world, we must take responsibility for creating and fostering it,” British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said Thursday, announcing the decision. Britain “is determined to do what is necessary to defend international justice.”

The offer is subject to approval by Britain’s Parliament and a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the potential transfer.

British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry, who introduced the resolution Thursday, said he expected it would be approved today.

“We’ve spent some weeks trying to find a solution,” Jones Parry said. “In the end we provided the solution ourselves.”

Human Rights Watch lauded the British move, which will allow the trial to proceed. But it urged the court to make the trial accessible to people in Sierra Leone, so they could see justice being done. “Victims of atrocities in Sierra Leone have long waited for Charles Taylor to face trial,” said Richard Dicker, director of the group’s international justice program.

Taylor launched a rebellion in Liberia in 1989, which spread through the region and undermined governments in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Ivory Coast. In 1997, he was elected president of Liberia, which again fell into civil war.

In 2003, as he faced an arrest warrant issued by the Sierra Leone tribunal, Taylor was given asylum in Nigeria. After an attempt to flee Nigeria in March, he was handed over to the court.