Putting a Genocidal Leader on Trial

The latest genocidal leader to be put on trial for war crimes is Liberia's Charles Taylor. Of course, he refuses to accept the legitimacy of the court - just like a long list of other genocidal leaders like the Nazis at Nuremberg, and more recently Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein.

Taylor is accused of committing atrocities in Sierra Leone's civil war. And it was less than a week ago when Taylor managed to escape and was caught trying to enter Cameroon. The Times picks up the following:

Security was tight at the Special Court in Sierra Leone, the country to which Taylor is accused of exporting his civil war. Court officials who received death threats and Taylor will be protected by bulletproof glass and dozens of U.N. peacekeepers from Mongolia and Ireland.

Taylor showed little emotion as a court official, Krystal Thompson of the United States, read the indictment. He sat at a table, flanked by two security officers. When the official read ''murder, a crime against humanity,'' he laced his fingers on the table before him.

Taylor met with his lawyers for the first time Monday morning shortly before his court appearance. Two lawyers from Liberia and two from Ghana ''gave him our advice and he will consider it. We consider our mission accomplished,'' said Kofi Akainyah, a Ghanian member of the team.

Many were suspicious when Nigeria's government announced Taylor's disappearance last week, just days after Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo reluctantly agreed to hand him over from the exile haven he had been offered under an internationally brokered peace agreement ending Liberia's 14-year civil war.

But Taylor's spiritual adviser said Nigerian security forces encouraged Taylor to flee and helped him get to the Cameroon border before turning around and arresting him in a double-cross.