Africasia

Federal High Court Judge Stephen Adah set another hearing for December 6 on the suit filed by two Nigerian businessmen who suffered mutilations by rebels in Sierra Leone.

"These applicants have their hands mutilated and amputated and these are their grievances. We do not have to shut them out; they suffered personal injuries and it is of greater interest to them that justice is done," said Adah.

"Since the asylum of Taylor is still on, there is no limitation to the applicants' interest," he added.

The two Nigerian amputees -- Emmanuel Egbuna and David Anyaele -- who were mutilated in 1999, alleged in their suit that Taylor had a role in their ordeal and have asked for a judicial review of Nigeria's decision to grant him political asylum.

Joined as co-defendants in the suit are Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, his justice minister, and three government agencies.

The two former businessmen in Freetown were captured by the rebel Revolutionary United Front, allegedly sponsored by Taylor, himself a former rebel leader in Liberia's long civil war.

Taylor arrived in Nigeria in August 2003 after stepping down as president as part of a peace deal to end the second of two civil wars to ravage Liberia since 1989.

The Nigeria Union of Journalists and several human rights organisations have criticised the Nigerian government for granting Taylor asylum.

Two Nigerian newspaper journalists, Krees Imodibie and Tayo Awotunsin, were killed in Liberia 1991 by rebel soldiers of the Taylor-led National Patriotic Front of Liberia.

Taylor has formally apologised for the murder of the two journalists.

Obasanjo has so far rejected local and international calls to release Taylor to face the war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone, where he is wanted on charges of sponsoring crimes carried out by rebels during Sierra Leone's civil war.

Obasanjo has said that Taylor was granted asylum on "humanitarian grounds" and as part of efforts to resolve the Liberian crisis.