No Danish jail cell for Taylor

Published Apr 26, 2006

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By Erik Matzen

Copenhagen - Denmark said on Tuesday that it would reject a request to provide a jail cell for former Liberian president Charles Taylor if he is convicted of war crimes, becoming the third European nation to do so.

The United Nations had asked the Danes if Taylor could serve any prison sentence in the Nordic country, but Copenhagen followed Sweden and Austria in turning down the proposal.

"We are sceptical. They should try elsewhere," Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller told reporters.

Denmark had received the United Nations request on Sunday and Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen had spoken about it with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Monday, Moeller said.

The UN wants to move Taylor's trial to The Hague in the Netherlands from a UN-backed tribunal in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, where Taylor has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

There are fears his trial could spur unrest in Sierra Leone or Liberia if it is held in Freetown. But diplomats say a move to The Hague will be delayed until a country can be found that is willing to take him if he is convicted.

The chief prosecutor at Sierra Leone's tribunal said foreign governments had to be ready to incarcerate those found guilty of war crimes if there were good reasons for them not to be imprisoned in the country where the crimes were committed.

"If international justice is going to be meaningful, it must then follow that the international community is willing to cooperate with international criminal courts in making custody available for those convicted," Desmond de Silva told reporters.

"It is a part of the contribution that responsible governments make to the maintenance of the rule of law around the world," he said in a telephone interview from Freetown.

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