Friday, July 21, 2006; Posted: 8:08 a.m. EDT (12:08 GMT)

Defence lawyer Karim Khan told the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, which will try Taylor for war crimes, that his client could not make phone calls as freely as he could in Freetown, lockdown hours were more draconian and he was unhappy about the food in the "rather Eurocentric" facility.

"Mr Taylor should be afforded the same rights and the same regime that are afforded to all other detained persons (in Sierra Leone)," Khan said.

Taylor, wearing a gray suit to the procedural hearing, also asked the court through his lawyer to speed visas for his family to visit him in The Hague. Taylor's wife is six months pregnant.

The Sierra Leone special court moved Taylor to The Hague because of fears a trial in Freetown could spur unrest in Sierra Leone or Liberia. Proceedings are being held in the premises of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Judge Richard Lussick said he did not want people to have the impression Freetown was "the Riviera of detention" but said he hoped the court's registrar would address Taylor's concerns.

Herman von Hebel, the Sierra Leone court's deputy registrar, told journalists he had come to the Hague to talk to the ICC about logistics related to the trial and said he thought Taylor's concerns were mostly easily solved "start-up" issues.

Trial to start in 2007
Taylor already appeared in court in Freetown for an initial hearing in April, when he pleaded innocent to 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for backing rebels who raped and mutilated civilians during a brutal 1991-2002 civil war in Sierra Leone, Liberia's neighbor.

Prosecutor Brenda Hollis said she hoped the trial could begin in February, but Khan said that was untenable and the earliest the defense could imagine starting would be in July.

Khan said the limits on phone calls were hampering Taylor's efforts to raise funds for his defense and said a case of this magnitude would take more than a year to prepare, especially given the difficulties created by moving the trial to The Hague.

Judge Lussick said it was too early to estimate a start date now, but hoped to be able to do so towards the end of the year. He set the next procedural hearing for September 29.

Hollis said the prosecution expected to want to present evidence from as many as 180 witnesses, either in person, via video link from Freetown or in written testimony. Khan said the defense would object to testimony via video link.

Taylor is being held at a prison near The Hague, where suspects standing trial at the U.N. tribunal for the former Yugoslavia are housed and where former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic died of a heart attack in March.

The U.N. Security Council authorized Taylor's transfer in June after Britain said it would jail him if he is found guilty.

Taylor's rise to power in 1989 led to a 14-year, on-and-off civil war in Liberia that spilled across regional borders. He fled into exile in Nigeria in 2003 but was returned to Liberia and transferred to the court in Sierra Leone on March 29.