Charles Taylor to be handed over

Nigeria is to hand over Liberia’s exiled former leader and war crimes suspect, Charles Taylor. Nigeria's president Olusegun Obasanjo says Liberia's new government is free to take him into custody. Taylor faces war crimes charges over his role in the civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone. He went into exile in Nigeria in 2003 as part of a deal to end 14 years of civil war in Liberia. Liberia's President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who took office in January after winning elections late last year, has previously said her priority was to rebuild Liberia, rather than put Taylor on trial. United Nations peacekeepers in Liberia are under instructions to arrest Taylor and transfer him to the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone if he sets foot on Liberian soil.