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UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The United States has circulated a resolution calling on U.N. peacekeepers in Liberia to arrest former Liberian President Charles Taylor if he returns and hand him over to the war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone for prosecution.
The draft resolution, obtained Monday by the Associated Press, would give the nearly 15,000-strong peacekeeping force authority to apprehend Taylor, who was given asylum in Nigeria after giving up the presidency in August 2003, "in the event of a return to Liberia."
Taylor resigned and fled the country as part of a peace deal brokered as rebels besieged the Liberian capital, Monrovia. He was later indicted by the U.N.-backed war-crimes tribunal for backing Sierra Leone rebels in their insurgency, but Nigeria granted him asylum and has refused to hand him over to the court.
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