Escape or escort for Charles Taylor?

Charles Taylor’s spiritual sidekick KA Paul, in today’s AP and NYT reports, alleges that the Nigerians staged the esape and the capture of Charles Taylor: Taylor’s spiritual adviser, the Indian evangelist Kilari Anand Paul, said Taylor told him in a phone call from jail on Saturday that State Security Service agents came with two vehicles ...

Charles Taylor's spiritual sidekick KA Paul, in today's AP and NYT reports, alleges that the Nigerians staged the esape and the capture of Charles Taylor:

Charles Taylor’s spiritual sidekick KA Paul, in today’s AP and NYT reports, alleges that the Nigerians staged the esape and the capture of Charles Taylor:

Taylor’s spiritual adviser, the Indian evangelist Kilari Anand Paul, said Taylor told him in a phone call from jail on Saturday that State Security Service agents came with two vehicles to his villa in southeastern Nigeria the night of March 28.

Taylor said they escorted him north, then released him "in the middle of nowhere," according to Paul, who spoke from his home in Houston. "He said, `Where are you guys going?’ And they said they received instructions to leave him and they left."

Before Taylor could cross into Cameroon, the agents who had freed him "turned up and arrested him … they had guns and told him to surrender himself," said Paul, who met Taylor in 2003 and says he helped broker Taylor’s exile to Nigeria.

It’s hard to know what to believe about all that’s being said about Charles Taylor’s adventures last week. I’m sure it’s an intricate narrative. The Nigerians want to keep their dirty laundry out of tribunals, some say Bush pressured Liberia to ask for Taylor, and Taylor says he was set up to look like a captured fugitive. It’ll take some time, but some sharp reporter will hopefully have the full Charles Taylor story for us by year’s end. Should we take bets on who gets the story? The New Yorker, NYT Magazine, the Atlantic, or somebody else?  

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