By Alphonso Toweh

MONROVIA, Feb 12 (Reuters) - Liberia's President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf said on Thursday she initially backed a rebellion led by former President Charles Taylor but was misled into supporting the man who is now on trial for war crimes.

Johnson-Sirleaf told her country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission that she had agreed with the need for change and provided Taylor's rebels with money in 1990, but denied she had been a member of his movement or helped him escape a U.S. jail.

She said U.S. officials were also aware of Taylor's plans when he launched a rebellion in 1989. Taylor was a warlord in Liberia's civil war, which triggered an intertwined conflict in Sierra Leone. About 250,000 people were killed in the wars.

Taylor is now being tried for war crimes for his role in the war in Sierra Leone but the trial is taking place at The Hague due to fears that it might spark regional instability.

"There were some of us who agreed that the rebellion was necessary, and I will admit to you that I was one of those who did agree that the rebellion was necessary," Johnson-Sirleaf told the Commission on Thursday.

She confirmed she was among the Liberians who provided Taylor with money and visited him in his rebel base on the border with Ivory Coast in May 1990.

But she denied any role in his escape from a Boston jail shortly before he started his rebellion and would only apologise "for being fooled" into supporting Taylor.

Taylor launched his rebellion against President Samuel Doe, who had come to power in a popular coup in 1980 but lost support due to the economy's collapse and ethnic tensions.

Investor and business confidence has increased since Johnson-Sirleaf, a former World Bank official and Africa's first female head of state, took power after a 2005 election.

In a sign of renewed stability in the country, which was founded by freed slaves from the United States in the 19th century, Liberia announced late last year that its foreign reserves had risen to more than $49 million from $5 million in 2006.

But opposition politicians have been calling for Johnson-Sirleaf to address the Commission about her involvement with the former president, which led to Thursday's hearing. (Writing by David Lewis, editing by Alistair Thomson and Myra MacDonald)

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