Agnes Reeves Taylor
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Agnes Reeves Taylor, ex-wife of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, was born on 27 September 1965 in Liberia. On 2 June 2017, she was arrested in London by the Metropolitan Police and charged with torture on the grounds of her suspected involvement with the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NFPL) rebel group, which was led by her ex-husband, during the First Liberian Civil War,[1] from 1989 to 1996.
As the second Liberian civil war broke out in 1999, Agnes Reeves Taylor was appointed by Charles Taylor[2] to serve as Permanent Representative of Liberia to the International Maritime Organization, which headquarters in London, from 1999 to 2005.[3]
In 2003 the Security Council Committee established in resolution 1521 a list of Liberian individuals and entities subject to a travel ban and included Agnes Taylor.[4]
In 2007 she was granted asylum in the UK,[5] while she was still on the travel ban list, which was updated to include her location as being in the United Kingdom.[6] She was removed from the travel ban list in 2012.[7]
She settled in the UK, where she worked as a lecturer at the London School of Commerce and Coventry University. Her residence in the UK allowed the UK authorities to arrest and charge her, based on universal jurisdiction laws, with the crimes she allegedly committed in Liberia.[8]
Charges
She was charged with seven counts of torture allegedly committed in Gbarnga, in northern Liberia, and in Gborplay, in north-eastern Liberia. The torture charges were brought under section 134(1) of the UK Criminal Justice Act 1988. She was also charged with one count of conspiracy to commit torture between 23 December 1989 and 1 January 1991, under section 1(1) of the UK Criminal Law Act 1977.[9]
Gbarnga had served as the headquarters of Charles Taylor's NPFL during the first Liberian civil war. A final peace agreement led to the election of Charles Taylor as President of Liberia in 1997.
The eight counts Agnes Reeves Taylor faced concerned events in 1990 as the first civil war raged across Liberia.
· The charge of conspiracy to commit torture related to her alleged facilitation of the rape of captive women by soldiers in Charles Taylor's rebel forces (NPFL)
· Three of the torture charges related to her alleged infliction of "severe pain or suffering", including assaults, on a 13-year-old child soldier.
· She was also allegedly involved in the torture of a “pastor’s wife” who resisted being raped by one of Charles Taylor's commanders. She allegedly "ordered that the woman be tied [in a manner that caused pain amounting to torture]. The defendant then shot and killed the woman's two young children, saying ‘See if you refuse an order this will happen'."[10][11]
Anges Reeves Taylor denied involvement in any crimes. She was held in pre-trial detention in the UK from 2 June 2017 until her release in 2019.[8][10]
Dismissal
On 6 December 2019 the Central Criminal Court (The Old Bailey) in London decided to dismiss the charges against Agnes Reeves Taylor.[9][5] The Court's decision came after the UK Supreme Court confirmed, in a historic judgment on 13 November 2019, that members of non-State armed groups may be prosecuted for crimes of torture under section 134(1) of the UK Criminal Justice Act 1988, thus legally paving the way for the case against Agnes Reeves Taylor to proceed to trial.[12] However, after rendering its judgment, the UK Supreme Court sent the case back to the Central Criminal Court to consider further evidence from the prosecution's expert and apply the legal standard confirmed by the Supreme Court to the facts of the case.
In order for a member of a non-State armed group to be prosecuted for torture, the group must have been exercising “governmental functions”. The Central Criminal Court ruled that the evidence presented by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) failed to prove that the NPFL had the requisite authority over the relevant territory at the time the crimes in question were committed. Therefore, the Court dismissed the case.[12] However, in its decision, the Court noted that “there is prima facie evidence that she held a high rank in the NPFL and (…) carried out, whether personally, or by giving orders, or by acquiescing in, the acts of torture (…) which took place in, or on the border of, Nimba County." Thus, Reeves Taylor was not found innocent.
Civitas Maxima and the Monrovia-based Global Justice and Research Project (GJRP) provided the initial information to the UK authorities which led the Metropolitan Police to conduct an investigation into Agnes Reeves Taylor for several years.[13] UK law allows the CPS in these circumstances to return to court if further evidence of government-like control is gathered. It remains to be seen if CPS will do this.