Gains Cited in Hunt for Liberia Ex-Warlord’s Fortune

By MARLISE SIMONS

THE HAGUE — For two years, Charles Taylor, the West African warlord and former president of Liberia, has been locked in a Dutch high-security jail, leaving the compound only in an armored car that speeds across The Hague as it delivers him to his war crimes trial.

But while he is in the dock, the hunt is still on for his legendary missing fortune. Prosecutors say the most exhaustive effort to date is under way to pinpoint the money the former dictator is believed to have amassed by pilfering the coffers of his country and running smuggling operations, particularly of diamonds, deep inside neighboring states.

No money has been seized, but investigators say they have made some breakthroughs recently.

“We have new information that more than $1 billion passed through Taylor’s personal bank accounts between 1997 and 2003 when he was president,” said Stephen Rapp, the chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, which is trying Mr. Taylor at an outpost in The Hague. Last year, experts advising the United Nations Security Council estimated Mr. Taylor’s fortune at half that amount.

Newly traced bank records and other documents show Liberian money flowing into Mr. Taylor’s accounts, as well as large cash withdrawals and transfers to foreign banks, Mr. Rapp said. “The records showed he controlled enormous funds which he hid,” the prosecutor said. “The big question is how much of that wealth is still left.”

The court now has the aid of a London law firm with experience in recovering wealth stolen by dictators and other leaders. Court officials said the firm was being paid by Western governments but they would not release other details, saying that could jeopardize the investigation.

Mr. Taylor, 60, has been charged with pillaging, but his hidden accounts and assets are also central to his prosecution on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The prosecutors want to demonstrate how he financed operations that dragged neighboring Sierra Leone into a civil war that lasted more than a decade.

Prosecutors argue that in his drive to expand his power in the region, Mr. Taylor used stolen millions, including profits from smuggled diamonds, to buy the loyalty, weapons and supplies for rebels in Sierra Leone and other neighboring countries. His indictment holds him accountable for the rebels’ barbaric methods, as they pillaged, killed, raped, used children as soldiers and hacked off hands or feet of innocent civilians.

No one knows how much money was stolen in the region or raised from the diamond fields of Sierra Leone and parts of Guinea. Evidence presented at the trial showed that enslaved laborers were often forced to dig for diamonds at gunpoint and could be executed for keeping a stone. Court investigators have said diamonds were often sold cheaply and used to pay for clandestine weapons shipments.

Millions of dollars of income from government timber concessions and Liberia’s shipping flags of convenience often went directly to Mr. Taylor, Western diplomats have said.

If the international judges’ panel finds him guilty of pillaging, the court can seize assets proved to belong to him or his associates and use the money for restitution.

The list of claimants is likely to be long. Trust funds have been set up in Liberia and Sierra Leone for war victims, among them the thousands who were mutilated by machetes. Each country may have claims for war damages and for pilfering state coffers and resources like diamonds and timber, prosecutors have said.

Not least, the court could claim funds for its expenses on Mr. Taylor’s defense.

The former Liberian dictator, who arrives for court in tinted glasses and impeccable suits, has insisted he has almost no money and cannot even pay for his defense. The governments of Nigeria and Liberia, where Mr. Taylor is believed to have considerable investments and real estate, have not cooperated with the court’s requests for information and freezing his assets, prosecutors said.

As a result, the court is paying $70,000 per month to his defense team, which includes a dozen people. It pays an additional $30,000 per month in other expenses, like the team’s office rent and salaries for the four investigators assigned to him.

Mr. Taylor, who had fretted about what he called the “low level” of his court-appointed defense team, obtained a court order last summer providing him with a large team of more senior lawyers.

If Mr. Taylor’s assets are found, the court could bill him for his defense, expected to cost $3 million to $4 million. Such costs are now paid by the governments who help finance the United Nations-backed court. The United States, which had high hopes for Mr. Taylor in 1997 when he was elected president, and backed him with aid and assistance, is a major donor.

Investigators say Mr. Taylor has demonstrated his skills in hiding money and fooling people, including the court, before. He built his first fortune as a government official in the 1980s and pocketed more than $900,000 before fleeing an embezzling charge. He was arrested in Boston, but while awaiting extradition he escaped from a Massachusetts jail and disappeared.

He is believed to have collected millions as a warlord in the 1990s from entrepreneurs in exchange for favors.

“We know now that many of Taylor’s assets are hidden off-shore or behind the names of his associates,” said Mr. Rapp, the chief prosecutor. But large cash withdrawals during his tenure as president suggest that he spent much of it on the war effort, according to investigators.

The United Nations has frozen $6 million in assets, in the name of Mr. Taylor or his associates, in 10 countries. “It’s a start, but it can’t be seized until we prove it’s Taylor’s money,” Mr. Rapp said.

The London lawyers are enlisting law enforcement agencies to press banks in several financial havens to cooperate, according to Mr. Rapp, who said that some countries, including the Bahamas and Switzerland, are already helping.

“Enough progress has already been made to show that more can be found,” he said.