Man arrested in London on suspicion of Liberia civil war crimes released under investigation

A man who was arrested in London on suspicion of war crimes during the Liberian civil wars has been released under investigation
Ray Forster/Flickr/Creative Commons licence CC BY-ND 2.0
Rebecca Speare-Cole28 August 2020
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A man who was arrested in London on suspicion of war crimes during the Liberian civil wars has been released under investigation.

The man was arrested in south east London on Thursday by the Metropolitan Police war crimes team at around 7.20am.

Scotland Yard said the alleged offences relate to the first and second civil wars in Liberia between 1989 and 2003.

Officers questioned the suspect at a central London police station before releasing him on Friday.

Police have also finished searching an address in south-east London and the inquiry continues.

The suspect was arrested on suspicion of offences contrary to section 51 of the International Criminal Court Act 2001.

The Liberian civil war raged from 1989 when minister Charles Taylor started an uprising in a bid to topple the government.

Backed by a rebel group, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), he gained control of large areas of the country and rose to become one of Africa’s most prominent warlords.

The NPFL has been accused of a wide range of human rights abuses and the large numbers of deaths during the conflict eventually led to the involvement of the UN and the Economic Community of West African States.

A final peace agreement led to the election of Taylor as president of Liberia in 1997.

A second civil war broke out in 1999 and Taylor was forced into exile in 2003.

He was later jailed for committing war crimes in neighbouring Sierra Leone.

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