The Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt jnr. has taken a swipe at the International Criminal Court trying former Liberian leader, Charles Taylor, describing it as unfair to Africans.

He is unhappy that Western leaders who have committed graver atrocities have been left off the hook while their African counterparts are hauled to face justice at the ICC.

Mr. Pratt was reacting to the verdict of the Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague, which found Charles Taylor guilty of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity on all eleven counts.

Mr Taylor has been on trial at the Special Court for Sierra Leone for almost five years. He was accused of helping Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels wage a terror campaign during a civil war that claimed 120,000 lives between 1991 and 2001.

But Mr Pratt speaking on What’s New on Radio XYZ said prosecution of former African leaders must cease if the ICC is not prepared to try leaders of the Western world.

?Africans are not inferior; Africans are not the only savages; there are many savages in the capitals of the Western world and they also must be held accountable,? he counseled.

The unrepentant Nkrumahist said the ?so called international community is still suffering from residual racism; [they are] still suffering from the complex which says that Africans are inferior and therefore we can treat Africans anyhow.?

?How come that African leaders get sent to the International Criminal Court and other leaders who commit worse offenses than the African leaders do don?t get sent to the ICC?? So where is the fairness?? adding, ?this is not about whether Charles was good or bad.?

He said available facts clearly indicate that the CIA in the United States of America sponsored the overthrow of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah in 1966 and that officials of the US who masterminded the dastardly act should have also been sent to the ICC.

?We know the atrocities which were committed. None of those responsible for the overthrow of the Nkrumah government has gone to the court. We know that Belgian intelligence and US intelligence and British intelligence collaborated to overthrow the Congolese leader, Patrice Lumumba. He was killed, he was assassinated; his body was dissolved in acid [and] many people were killed [but] nobody has gone to the criminal court,? he lamented.

Mr. Pratt however blamed African leaders for the current situation. According to him, these leaders are not speaking up against the atrocities being meted out to their counterpart, which is why they are consistently hauled to such courts.

?What did Charles Taylor do that George Bush did not do ten or fifteen times over? What did Taylor do that Tony Blair did not do ten or fifteen times over? Who has been taken to court over the establishment of the Abu Ghraib prison and the Gunatanomo Bay prisons? Nobody!?

Mr. Pratt affirmed that ?any justice system must ensure fairness. It ought to ensure the equality of citizens before the law. I don?t see that in the international criminal court.?