Special report: Liberia's Taylor arrested, awaiting possible handover

File photo of Charles Taylor (Xinhua/AFP)

      BRUSSELS, March 30 (Xinhua) -- The special tribunal for Sierra Leone(SCLS) has formally asked the Netherlands to host the war crimes trial of former Liberian leader Charles Taylor in The Hague,the Dutch foreign ministry said on Thursday.

    "(On) Wednesday the Sierra Leone special court asked the Dutch government to agree to allow the physical judicial process to takeplace in the Netherlands but it would remain the Sierra Leone tribunal." foreign ministry spokesman Dirk-Jan Verjeij said.

    He said the Sierra Leone court had asked the Hague-based International Criminal Court to make its facilities available for the trial.

    Taylor is considered the single most powerful figure behind a series of civil wars in both Liberia and Sierra Leone between 1989 and 2003.

    The Sierra Leone court has charged Taylor with 11 offences including crimes against humanity and war crimes relating to the civil war.

    He was captured on Tuesday in northeastern Nigeria when he was trying to cross the border into neighboring Cameroon.

    He was transferred from Nigeria to Liberia and then on to Sierra Leone where he was jailed in the tribunal's detention facility in Freetown.

    Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said earlier that the court in the Hague would be a "more conducive environment" for Taylor's trial.

    The UN-backed court in Freetown had told the Dutch authorities that Taylor's "physical presence there could endanger the stability of the region". Enditem