Charles Taylor (Liberian Politician) - Government, Imprisonment and Escape

Government, Imprisonment and Escape

Taylor supported the 12 April 1980 coup led by Samuel Doe, which saw the murder of President William R. Tolbert, Jr. and seizure of power by Doe. Taylor was appointed to the position of Director General of the General Services Agency, a position that left him in charge of purchasing for the Liberian government. However, he was sacked in May 1983 for embezzling almost $1,000,000 and sending the funds to an American bank account.

Taylor fled to the United States but was arrested on 21 May 1984 by two US Deputy Marshals in Somerville, Massachusetts, on a warrant for extradition to face charges of embezzling $1 million of government funds while the GSA boss. Citing a fear of assassination by Liberian agents, Taylor fought extradition from the safety of jail with the help of a legal team led by former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark. His lawyers' primary arguments before US District Magistrate Robert P. DeGiacomo stated that his alleged acts of lawbreaking in Liberia were political rather than criminal in nature and that the extradition treaty between the two republics had lapsed; in response, Assistant United States Attorney Richard G. Stearns argued that Liberia wished to charge Taylor with theft in office, rather than with political crimes, and that any international political decisions that could hold up the trial should only be made by the US State Department. Stearns' arguments were reinforced by Liberian Justice Minister Jenkins Scott, who flew to the United States to be present at the proceedings. While awaiting the conclusion of the extradition hearing, Taylor was detained in the Plymouth County House of Corrections.

On 15 September 1985, Taylor and four other inmates escaped from the jail. Two days later, the Boston Globe reported that they sawed through a bar covering a window in a dormitory room, after which they lowered themselves 20 feet (6.1 m) on knotted sheets and escaped into nearby woods by climbing a fence. Shortly thereafter, Taylor and two other escapees were met at nearby Jordan Hospital by Taylor's wife, Enid, and Taylor's sister-in-law, Lucia Holmes Toweh. A getaway car was driven to Staten Island, where Taylor then disappeared. All four of Taylor's fellow escapees, as well as Enid and Toweh, were later apprehended.

In July 2009, Mr Taylor himself told at his trial, at the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone in the Hague, that US CIA agents had helped him escape from the maximum security prison in Boston in 1985. The US Defence Intelligence Agency did confirm that Mr Taylor first started working with US intelligence in the 1980s but refused to give details on exactly what role Mr Taylor played, citing national security.