Wife's writ to locate Sankoh

Foday Sankoh in a truck shortly after his detention

By West Africa correspondent Mark Doyle

Fatou Sankoh, wife of the detained Sierra Leonean rebel leader Foday Sankoh, has begun proceedings in the High Court in London to determine the whereabouts of her husband.

Foday Sankoh, whose followers committed widespread atrocities during the civil war, was detained in Sierra Leone in late May in a joint operation involving Sierra Leonean militiamen and members of the British army.

He has not been seen in public since.

Fatou Mbaye Sankoh denies reports of RUF atrocities

Mrs Fatou Sankoh's lawyers have now issued a writ of habeas corpus in the British High Court on the grounds that the British government has some responsibility for his whereabouts.

I was in the Sierra Leonean capital, Freetown, on the day that Mr Sankoh was arrested by a Sierra Leonean militiaman calling himself Scorpion.

In the confusion that followed the dawn seizure of Sierra Leone's most wanted man, I saw about a dozen British soldiers arrive at the military barracks he was taken to.

Reliable eye-witnesses said that the feared rebel leader was then taken in an RAF Chinook helicopter to Freetown airport - a move presumably undertaken because the authorities feared, quite understandably, that he might be lynched by angry crowds.

British troops were supporting the Sierra Leone authorities at the time of the arrest

The official position of both the British and Sierra Leonean governments is that Mr Sankoh is in the custody of the Sierra Leonean police.

But most people in Sierra Leone believe that the British forces there, which provide critical military backing to the government, must at the very least know of Mr Sankoh's whereabouts.

The hearing in the writ of habeas corpus has been adjourned until later this month.

The case may be complicated by moves, backed by the United States, to have Mr Sankoh tried for war crimes under an international tribunal.