US newspaper says Taylor worked for US intelligence

A startling revelation made by a US newspaper indicates that former Liberian President Charles Taylor was aided by American intelligence agents to escape from a Boston prison where he was awaiting extradition back to his country.

The Boston Globe newspaper this week carried the report which also indicated Taylor worked as a spy for the Americans for many years.

He had fled Liberia where he was wanted for embezzling millions of dollars from the government and was awaiting extradition from the US when he escaped from the Massachusetts jail in 1985.

The Globe reported that the revelation about Taylor’s spy connections came six years after the newspaper made a request for confirmation to the US Defence Department in keeping with America’s Freedom of Information Act.

Furthermore, the report said that Taylor worked for US intelligence from the beginning of the 80s when, according to unnamed intelligence sources cited by the newspaper, he was recruited to reportedly provide information on Muammar Gaddafi of Libya.

The US Department of Defence confirmed to the newspaper the spy connection with Taylor but refused to reveal any details about the relationship, saying doing so would harm national security.

Taylor was among a group of guerrilla leaders from the continent who received training in Gaddafi’s Libya. He later started a bloody insurgency in Liberia that cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

He is currently before the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone sitting at The Hague awaiting a verdict on war crimes and crimes against humanity charges related to the Sierra Leonean civil war, where he is accused of having backed a fellow warlord called Foday Sankoh.

The Globe reported that the American government kept a tight lid on its relations with Taylor throughout the time he was a rebel leader fighting to overthrow the government of Samuel Doe and even after he became president.