Liberian warlord Charles Taylor found guilty

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Category: International News

Published on Wednesday, 30 May 2012 10:33

Written by George Chavula

Liberian warlord Charles Taylor will be sentenced for war crimes by a special UN court on Wednesday, after being found guilty of arming Sierra Leone rebels in return for blood diamonds.
The hearing before judges of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, situated just outside The Hague, will be the first time a former head of state will be sentenced by a world court since the Nazi trials at Nuremberg in 1946.

Brenda Hollis, the tribunal's chief prosecutor, earlier this month argued for 80-year prison sentence for Taylor, once one of the most powerful men in West Africa and a driving force behind Sierra Leone's brutal 1991-2001 civil war.
The former Liberian president was convicted on 26 April on 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for aiding and abetting Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front rebels and their allies during the war, in which 120 000 lives were lost.
In return, the court said, Taylor was paid in diamonds mined by slave labour in areas under the control of rebels who murdered, raped and kept sex slaves while hacking off limbs and forcing children under 15 to fight for them.