Ex-wife of former Liberian president charged with torture

Former Liberian president Charles Taylor during his war crimes trial in 2011. His ex-wife Agnes has been charged with four torture offences. Photograph: Jerry Lampen/AFP/Getty Images

Agnes Reeves Taylor, the ex-wife of former Liberian president Charles Taylor, has been charged with four torture offences allegedly committed in the west African country, Scotland Yard said.

Agnes Taylor, 51, was arrested by the Met police’s war crimes team on Thursday and was accused on Friday of committing the offences between 1989 and 1991.

She was charged with two counts of being involved in torture in Gbarnga, in the north of the country, and one count of the same in Gborplay, in its north-east.

Each charge was brought under section 134(1) of Britain’s Criminal Justice Act 1988. She was also charged with planning to carry out torture between 23 December 1989 and 1 January 1991 under section 1(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977.

Gbarnga served as the headquarters of Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front during the first Liberian civil war. A final peace agreement led to the election of Taylor as president of Liberia in 1997. A second civil war broke out in 1999 and Taylor was forced into exile in 2003.

Agnes Taylor, who lives in Dagenham, in east London, is due to appear at Westminster magistrates court on Saturday.

Charles Taylor was jailed for 50 years in 2012 for war crimes after a UN-backed tribunal in The Hague. A year later, the Ministry of Justice confirmed he would serve the sentence in a British prison.