Denmark rejects UN request to accept Liberia's Taylor

Denmark will turn down a UN request to accept former Liberian President Charles Taylor after his trial in a UN-backed war crimes court, Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said today.

“We are telling the UN to try to look elsewhere,” Moeller told reporters in Copenhagen.

Sweden and Austria earlier rejected similar requests, which would have removed a key obstacle to moving Taylor’s trial to The Hague, Netherlands.

“There are other countries in the world than the three of us,” Moeller said after a meeting in Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

The Special Court in Sierra Leone has requested that Taylor’s trial be moved to The Hague for fear that the former warlord could still spark unrest in West Africa.

The Netherlands has agreed – but only if the arrangement is endorsed by a UN Security Council resolution, the Hague-based International Criminal Court agrees to provide the venue and Taylor leaves immediately after the trial, even if he is acquitted.

Denmark received a formal query yesterday from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan about whether it would consider accepting Taylor, Moeller said.

The foreign minister added Denmark would formally decline the request once Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen returns from a trip to Greenland on Friday.

Moeller noted that Denmark has no agreement with the Sierra Leone court that would make it possible to accept the former warlord.

Taylor faces 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity stemming from his alleged backing of Sierra Leonean rebels who terrorised victims by chopping off their arms, legs, ears and lips.

He pleaded not guilty at an April 3 arraignment, but no trial date has been set pending resolution of the problem of where the trial will be held.