LIBERIA: A week ago Charles Taylor was driving across Nigeria, intent on fleeing international justice
Yesterday the former president of Liberia sat stony-faced before a criminal tribunal in Sierra Leone to answer 11 charges of crimes against humanity. He betrayed little emotion as allegations of rape, murder and war crimes were read out by court officials.
Taylor (58) spoke deliberately as he answered the charges.
"I do not recognise the jurisdiction of this court," he said, before denying any involvement. "I did not and could not have committed the atrocities that allegedly occurred during Sierra Leone's civil war."
The charges relate to his alleged support for the Revolutionary United Front which used rape and mutilation as weapons in its vicious campaign to topple Sierra Leone's government during the country's 1991-2002 civil war.
Security was tight yesterday at the United Nations-backed special court in the capital Freetown. A contingent of Mongolian peacekeepers was bolstered by Irish troops flown in from their base in Liberia.
The United Nations Security Council is considering a request to switch the trial to The Hague in the Netherlands. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, sworn in as Liberia's president earlier this year, is among those to have expressed concern that holding the trial in west Africa could be used as an excuse for fresh violence.
Taylor began his march to power at the head of a rebel army in 1989, plunging Liberia into seven years of civil war.
He won a disputed election in 1997 but gradually lost his grip on Liberia as former allies launched waves of rebellion.
Three years ago he fled to Nigeria as part of a peace deal brokered by President Olusegun Obasanjo. Last week, however, Nigeria agreed to hand him over, prompting the former warlord's flight. He was arrested days later at the border with Cameroon.
Many hope the case will firmly establish the principle that Africa's despots are not above the law.
Rose Dole (39), a banker in Freetown, spoke for many when she said: "I feel good that the man responsible for so many lives, so much suffering - so many families lost members and their friends - for that man to be brought to Sierra Leone for trial."