United Nations human rights chief Louise Arbour has called for former Liberian President Charles Taylor to stand trial in a war crimes court in Sierra Leone on charges of fomenting that country's 10-year civil wa, Reuters reported . Taylor went into exile in Nigeria in August 2003 under a deal to end years of civil war in Liberia. Last year a special U.N.-backed tribunal indicted him on 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for stoking a brutal conflict in Sierra Leone through an illicit trade in guns for diamonds. Human rights campaigners have demanded Nigeria surrender him for trial, but Nigeria has said it will not extradite Taylor unless he is found to have broken the terms of his exile agreement. Interfering in politics back home would be a breach of Taylor's exile agreement with the Nigerian government. Last week Liberian Justice Minister Kabineh Ja'neh, himself a former rebel, accused Taylor of trying to destabilise his homeland from exile in the run-up to the elections -- which Taylor's spokesman in Nigeria denied. --mor 1430 Local Time 1130 GMT
