MONROVIA, Liberia (Reuters) – Liberia’s Roman Catholic primate said at a requiem Mass on Monday for five American nuns that he held the rebel leader Charles Taylor responsible for their deaths. 

The missionaries from the Illinois-based Adorers of the Blood of Christ order disappeared about two weeks ago. Archbishop Michael Francis and other church officials, quoting witnesses, said the women were murdered near their convent in Gardnersville, a Monrovia suburb controlled by Mr. Taylor. 

As the Mass began in a Monrovia cathedral, a shell fired by Mr. Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia landed near the airport, killing four civilians, witnesses said.