Liberia's security agency briefly detained three associates of ex-President Charles Taylor after President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf said she had requested he face a war crimes trial, a government minister said on Saturday, according to Reuters. Johnson-Sirleaf, elected last year in polls aimed at drawing a line under more than a decade of civil war, said on Friday she had asked Nigeria, where Taylor has lived in exile since 2003, to hand him over to a special war crimes court in Sierra Leone. The news, which followed more than a week of speculation and conflicting messages from the governments of Nigeria and Liberia, prompted rumours of an attempted coup in Liberia's capital Monrovia, which the government denied. Information Minister Johnny McClain said there was no truth in talk of a coup attempt, but said three officials of the National Patriotic Party (NPP), founded by Taylor, were briefly detained on Friday by the National Security Agency.
