Charles Taylor Wants Presidential Pension

Charles Taylor

Liberia's jailed ex-President of Liberia, Mr. Charles Taylor has asked the Liberian Government, demanding for his pension as a former president of the country.

A report by the BBC News said Taylor is demanding an annual state pension of $25,000 (£15,600) even as he maintains that he is innocent of all the charges for which he was send to jail.

Liberian Senate Secretary, Mr. Nanborloh Singbeh, said the letter, in which Taylor described the withholding of his presidential pension as “mammoth injustice” would be discussed by members of the parliament next week.

Last May, an UN-backed court sentenced him to 50 years in prison on 11 counts of war crimes.

He became the first former head of state to be convicted on such charges by an international court since the Nuremberg trials of Nazis after World War II.

Taylor, who is in jail at The Hague, is appealing against the judgement by the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone.
It ruled that as Liberia's president, he aided and abetted Sierra Leone's rebels during the 1991-2002 civil wars.

However, Taylor's brother-in-law, Mr. Arthur Saye, was said to have confirmed that the ex-president wrote the letter, demanding that government should give accommodation and diplomatic passports to his wife Victoria and his two daughters.

“The fact is that I have not received my entitlement as set out under the law as a former president of Liberia since I resigned the office on August 11, 2003,” the letter to the senate reads.

“May I, with respect, request in this formal manner the intervention of this august body in bringing an end to this mammoth injustice and cause my law annuities to be made available to me,” he pleaded in the letter
Taylor is also quoted in the letter as saying that he is entitled to consular access and diplomatic services at The Hague, but he has been “denied that right.”

Taylor was forced into exile in Nigeria in 2003 after the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (Lurd) rebel movement laid siege to Monrovia.

-- Thisdaylive