Government vows to protect Taylor despite US bounty

Nigeria has vowed not to hander over former Liberian President Charles Taylor for trial on war crimes charges despite a United States government announcement of a reward for his capture. President Olusegun Obasanjo’s spokeswoman Remi Oyo said on Sunday Nigeria would not be "intimidated" into handing over Taylor to face an indictment for war crimes in Sierra Leone. A bill signed into law last week by US President George Bush to back emergency funding for Iraq and Afghanistan provides for a US $2 million payment for anyone who helps bring to justice "an indictee of the Special Court for Sierra Leone". The indictee is understood to be Taylor. "Any attempt to forcefully take Taylor from Nigeria will be a violation of our territorial integrity," Oyo told reporters. "We don’t expect that from a friendly nation." Taylor, who won an election for president of Liberia in 1997 after fighting for years, was forced by international pressure to leave office and go to exile in Nigeria in August as rebels fighting to topple him besieged the capital, Monrovia. His departure ended 14 years of war in Liberia. Before he left Liberia, Taylor was indicted for war crimes by a United Nations-backed tribunal in Sierra Leone over his alleged role supporting rebel forces that waged a brutal 10-year war there. He was accused of trafficking diamonds from rebel-held areas of Sierra Leone and supplying weapons used by fighters, some as young as 10, to commit brutal atrocities against civilians. Obasanjo, who offered him asylum, has all along insisted that his government will not hand over Taylor, saying its decision to take in the former warlord was to bring peace to Liberia and safeguard regional security. An aide to Taylor in Calabar, the southeast Nigerian city where Taylor lives in exile, told IRIN the Nigerian authorities have beefed up security around his residence since President Bush signed the bill putting a prize on his head.