Britain May Accept Taylor if Convicted

Ex-President Charles Taylor faces 11 counts of crimes against humanity for his role in formenting violence throughout West Africa. (Schalk Van Zuydam - AP)

Dutch Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hannah Tijmes said another Dutch condition for hosting the trial _ a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the trial's transfer _ likely would come "within a few days." The resolution has been drafted, but the council was waiting for a country to agree to take Taylor before voting on it.

Tijmes also said the Dutch parliament must enact a law allowing the trial to take place in The Hague.

The court last month dismissed a motion filed by Taylor's lawyer, who is pressing to keep the trial in Sierra Leone. Taylor says his witnesses and relatives would not be able to attend if the trial is moved to Europe.

Taylor was expected to be transferred from detention in Freetown after the Security Council adopts the resolution.

Taylor's first stop will be the ICC detention unit, a 12-cell wing in a maximum-security Dutch prison complex in the coastal suburb of Scheveningen. There is only one other prisoner there _ former Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga.

The U.N. war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia maintains a separate bloc of 84 cells in the same complex.

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Associated Press reporters Arthur Max in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed to this report.