UNITED NATIONS (AP):
LIBERIAN PRESIDENT Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said Friday she has asked Africa's leaders to decide whether ex-president Charles Taylor should be handed over to a war crimes tribunal for prosecution for his role in Sierra Leone's civil war.
She said she told Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who helped arrange the one-time warlord's asylum to help end Liberia's civil war, "it's time to bring the Taylor issue to closure."
"He's now consulting with the Africa leadership to be able to achieve that objective," Sirleaf said. "If the collective decision of the African leadership is that Mr. Taylor, in bringing this to closure, should go to the courts that that will be the decision that will be taken collectively."
She spoke to reporters before addressing the U.N. Security Council for the first time since her election in January as Africa's first woman president.
A statement from the Nigerian presidency indicated that Liberia had asked for Taylor to be handed over to the war crimes tribunal, but Sirleaf made clear that she wanted the decision to be made by Africa's leaders.
Obasanjo is consulting with leaders from the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, who helped broker Taylor's exile on how to respond, the Nigerian presidency statement said.
APPROPRIATE RESPONSE
"The president has indicated that Nigeria will take a decision on the Liberian government's request based on the views of the AU and ECOWAS and give an appropriate response," it said.
Obasanjo has said he would consider any request by a democratically elected Liberian leader.
Taylor has lived in exile in the southern Nigerian city of Calabar since being forced from power under a peace deal brokered in 2003 that ended a rebel assault on the capital, Monrovia.
