Posted by By FRANCIS AWOWOLE-BROWNE, Abuja on
The State Security Services (SSS) on Tuesday denied any complicity in the failed escape bid of former Liberian President, Charles Taylor, who is facing trial in Freetown, Sierra Leonian capital.
The State Security Services (SSS) on Tuesday denied any complicity in the failed escape bid of former Liberian President, Charles Taylor, who is facing trial in Freetown, Sierra Leonian capital.
SSS spokesman, Mr. Ado Muazu, told Daily Sun in Abuja that there was no truth whatsoever in the allegation by Mr. Taylor, who had said, through his spiritualist, that men of the service aided his escape bid only to betray him later.
'We have no hand in his escape bid and that is the truth," he said.
Taylor was reported to have told one United States-based spiritualist that he was escorted out of Calabar by operatives of the SSS on orders 'from above" only to be exposed later at a border town of Gamboru Ngala in Borno State.
However, Special Assistant to President Olusegun Obasanjo on Public Affairs, Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode, had swiftly debunked the claim, saying, neither President Obasanjo nor the federal republic betrayed Taylor and that the government did the right thing at the right time and that the claim was therefore a ruse.
The SSS director of public affairs explained that the organization was not involved in the former warlord's escape bid and could not have been involved because the escape bid bordered on national security. He described the allegation as baseless.
On whether the organization will investigate the allegation to ascertain the veracity or otherwise, Mr. Muazu said there was nothing to investigate as the allegation is already known to be falsehood
Besides, he said that the allegation was not even made by Mr. Taylor himself.
'To us, Taylor has not made an allegation that will warrant investigation by us. Nobody knows the spiritualist quoted by the foreign media which our local press also quoted," he said.
The SSS official further explained that since government had reacted to the allegation, it 'is of no use for us to dissipate our energy on mere hearsay."