Less than three days after revoking his asylum, Nigerian authorities announced Tuesday that Charles Taylor had disappeared, drawing outrage from rights groups and causing unease in Liberia's capital, Monrovia.

Taylor, who is suspected to have left his southern Nigeria home by boat sometime on Monday, is believed to have amassed a large personal fortune while his forces controlled the mineral-rich West African nation of Liberia. He is a skilled political maneuverer and has been accused before of attempting to meddle in Liberian affairs from his Nigerian exile.

Amnesty International condemned Nigerian autorities for allowing Taylor to disappear, calling the former warlord and president an "international fugitive" and demanding that any country where he is found arrest and surrender him immediately to the Special Court in Sierra Leone. Taylor has been charged with 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for the part he played in supporting rebels fighting a brutal campaign for over a decade in Sierra Leone.

"Allowing Charles Taylor to escape trial would be a human rights scandal and a slap in the face for the thousands of victims of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murders, amputations, rapes, sexual slavery and the use of child soldiers," said Amnesty's Africa Programme director Tuesday.

For more background on Taylor and the situation in Liberia, see my posting from Monday.