Bockarie said killed in shoot-out with Liberian forces

Sam Bockarie, a former rebel commander from Sierra Leone who was being sought for war crimes by a UN-backed special court, has been killed in a shoot-out on the Liberian border with Cote d'Ivoire, the Liberian government said on Tuesday. Defence Ministry spokesman Philibert Browne said Bockarie's body had been taken to a funeral parlour in the capital Monrovia and would be displayed there on Wednesday. The government said earlier that Bockarie had been wounded in a shoot-out with Liberian government forces as he tried to cross the border from Cote d'Ivoire with a group of armed men on Tuesday morning. "Gen. Bockarie and a small unit of bodyguards was spotted crossing into Liberia from the vicinity of the Ivorian border town of Bin-Houin in the early hours of Tuesday morning," the government said in a statement quoting "defense ministry sources". The UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone has repeatedly accused Liberian President Charles Taylor of giving sanctuary to Bockarie and Johnny Paul Koroma, another fugitive wanted for crimes against humanity committed during Sierra Leone's civil war in the 1990s. On Tuesday night, David Crane, the court's prosecutor, demanded that the Liberian government hand over Bockarie's body to Sierra Leone for forensic examination and positive identification. He also repeated allegations that Koroma was in Liberia and demanded that the government arrest him and turn him over. Crane repeated earlier claims that Koroma was in the Foya Kamala area of Lofa county in northern Liberia, commanding a pro-Taylor force of 3,000 armed men known as the Special Monitoring Group. On Sunday he alleged that Bockarie, was in Kahnple, in Nimba County, near the main road crossing between Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire, accompanied by 40 to 50 fighters of the Revolutionary United Front, the Sierra Leone rebel movement of which he was formerly a leader. Six other people have already been charged and arrested by the special court and are awaiting trial in Freetown. The Liberian government statement said: "An attempt by the Liberian government forces on orders to arrest him (Bockarie) was met with stiff resistance and there were casualties on both sides. There are reports that Sam Bockarie was seriously wounded in the shoot-out." The statement did not specify how many had been killed or wounded, but it said: "All casualties have been ordered brought to Monrovia for identification and treatment." The Sierra Leone Special Court's chief investigator, Alan White, last week threatened to charge the Liberian president with "obstruction of justice" for aiding and abetting indicted war criminals if he refused to hand over Koroma and Bockarie. Earlier on Tuesday, Taylor denied that the two men were in Liberia, but he said they would be turned over to the Sierra Leone authorities if found there. Commenting on the military situation situation, he told a news conference, "government forces are in the process of liberating the southeast... fighting is still going on in Ganta (near the northern border with Guinea)." "The war is in full gear right now," he added. Taylor said that some of his former rivals like Charles Zulu and Edward Slanger were behind MODEL, a new armed group which captured the port town of Greenville in southeastern Liberia last week. Slanger was granted amnesty by Taylor in March 2003 after being convicted of treason. Referring to international efforts aimed at bringing the government and rebels to the negotiating table to discuss a peace settlement, Taylor announced: "We support the work of the International Contact Group on Liberia. This government will continue to engage the African Union, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) so as to find an African solution to the problem in Liberia." He said plans for presidential elections in October remained on course.