The war crimes trial of the former Liberian President, Charles Taylor, was postponed by the Special Court for Sierra Leone to allow Taylor's new defense team more time to prepare. The trial was set to start on Monday, but the Court only held a hearing to decide whether to allow the postponement.

The new court date is January 7, 2008. Charles Taylor was arrested in Gamboru, along Nigeria's northeastern border with Cameroon, on March 29, 2006. He was surrendered by Nigeria to the UN in Sierra Leone and was subsequently incarcerated by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Charles Taylor, who was President of Liberia from 1997 to 2003, faces 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, and the recruitment and use of child soldiers during a bloody civil war in Sierra Leone. The character Andre Baptiste, Sr. from the movie Lord of War is largely based on Charles Taylor.

"No one is denying that horrific acts were committed ... the question is: were those horrible things done at the behest of or in the knowledge of this defendant?" his chief defense counsel, Courtenay Griffiths, asked the Court.

Many murders during his tenure were carried out with the help of his son, Charles McArthur Emmanuel, known as Charles "Chuckie" Taylor Jr., who was born in Boston in 1977 to a former girlfriend of Taylor. He took over the Anti-Terrorist Unit in Liberia after his father became president in 1997, and Human Rights Watch together with many Liberian witnesses claim strongly that the special forces unit was involved in many murders, torture, abuse of civilians, recruitment of child soldiers and looting.

He faces a potential life prison sentence in a three-count federal indictment with committing torture overseas as a U.S. citizen, as well as with conspiracy.