AT the height of his power, Charles Taylor carried around a map of "Greater Liberia", his vision of a republic that would one day encompass parts of three neighbouring countries and their diamond, mineral and timber reserves. Taylor's dream - and West Africa's nightmare - began in Gbarnga, an unassuming provincial town where he launched his rebel movement in 1989. Behind an army of drugged-up boy soldiers, Taylor rose to the presidency of Liberia, laid waste to his country and stoked conflicts throughout the region, amassing a vast personal fortune in pursuit of his empire. Now Taylor holds a special place in the annals of African dictators: he is the first to be tried for war crimes by an international court. He is due to face charges in April that he funnelled cash and weapons to neighbouring Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front rebels - who killed, mutilated and raped thousands during a 1996-2002 civil war - inexchange for access to diamond mines.
Taylor left power in 2003, forced into exile by a domestic insurgency and growing international condemnation, and might have expected to live out his days in his oceanfront villa in Nigeria. But last March, under pressure from US officials, Liberia's newly elected president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, demanded that he be transferred to Sierra Leone's UN-backed war crimes tribunal. He briefly escaped custody but was caught trying to cross the border into Cameroon in a Range Rover with diplomatic licence plates.
Fearing that his trial could throw Sierra Leone back into turmoil, authorities extradited Taylor to The Hague, where, starting on April 2, he will answer to 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, sexual slavery and enlistment of child soldiers.