Amnesty International, a human rights movement, has asked the Federal Government to surrender former Liberian president Charles Taylor for war crimes trial before the Special Court for Sierra Leone. In the alternative, the movement said that government should "open a national investigation with a view to determining whether to pursue criminal or extradition proceedings against him." This was contained in a petition filed by the London based human rights movement before a Federal High Court in Abuja It filed the petition as "amicus curie" (friend of court) in a suit instituted early this year by two Nigerian businessmen who were brutally amputated in 1999, during the civil war in Sierra Leone. The plaintiffs, Emmanuel Egbuna and David Anyaele, are challenging the refugee status granted Taylor by the Nigerian government on August 1, 2003. Trial judge, Justice Stephen Adah, on Tuesday granted Amnesty International's ex-parte application praying for leave to intervene as amicus curie in the suit. In the petition, Amnesty International contended that Taylor was indicted on March 7, 2003 by the Special Court for Sierra Leone on a 17-count charge against humanity and war crimes. Relying on customary and conventional international law and treaties, the movement argued that Obasanjo ought not to have granted asylum to Taylor. "Article 1 F (a) of the 1951 Refugee Convention and Article 1(5) of the OAU Refugee convention have been ratified by Nigeria. "As well as general principles of law and uniformly that require that states must not provide asylum to persons where there is serious reason to believe that they have committed crimes against humanity or war crimes," the petition stated. Nigeria granted Taylor political asylum on humanitarian grounds to save the peace process in Liberia Taylor has since settled down with his family in Calabar. Egbuna and Anyaele filed the suit alleging that Taylor "largely engineered and financed" the civil war in Sierra Leone during which their limbs were severed and many Nigerians were brutally killed. In support of their affidavits, the plaintiffs recounted the brutal treatments against them and other Nigerians during the civil war. "The rebels isolated Nigerians from the other captives and began amputating their forelimbs," Anyaele, Executive Director of the Amputees Rehabilitation Foundation, said. "After amputating me, the rebels set me on fire and told me to go deliver their message to the Nigerian government," he further alleged. Egbuna, who was lucky to get his mutilated limbs stitched together, also recounted his experience in the affidavit. "They cut off the hands of my younger brother, Benedict, from beneath the elbow, they dumped him at the cemetery behind the house and he bled to death in front of me and his pregnant wife," he said. "The machete cut through the flesh and the bones of my hands, but did not entirely severe them, with my hands dangling from my arms, the rebels also dumped me at the cemetery," he added. Adah had on May 31, granted leave to the plaintiffs to review the refugee status granted to Taylor.
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