Former Liberian leader to serve 50 years in jail
Source: Agencies |
May 31, 2012, Thursday
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FORMER Liberian President Charles Taylor was jailed for 50 years yesterday for helping Sierra Leonean rebels commit what a court in The Hague called some of the worst war crimes in history.
Taylor, 64, was the first head of state convicted by an international court since the trials of Nazis after World War II and the sentence set a precedent for the emerging system of international justice.
In an 11-year war that ended in 2002, Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front rebels murdered, raped and mutilated their way across Liberia's West African neighbor, helped by Taylor as he profited from a trade in so-called blood diamonds, the court said.
"He was found responsible for aiding and abetting some of the most heinous and brutal crimes in recorded history," said the Special Court for Sierra Leone's presiding judge Richard Lussick, emphasizing that the world was "entering a new era of accountability."
Although shorter than the 80 years prosecutors had sought, the sentence set a precedent for an international justice system aimed at deterring future war crimes. The court rejected defence appeals for leniency.
Dressed in a blue suit and yellow tie, Taylor sat impassively through the roughly 45-minute sentencing.
Hands clasped in front of his mouth and brow furrowed, Taylor shifted uneasily when the camera broadcasting proceedings settled on him.
For Edward Conteh, a Sierra Leonean whose left arm was hacked off by the rebels, the sentence was welcome.
"Taylor is now 64 years old, I know that he cannot do 50 years in prison, so I'm satisfied," Conteh said in the muggy and dilapidated capital, Freetown, scene of mass amputations during some of the heaviest fighting of the war.
Sierra Leone's average life expectancy dipped to 37 years during the war, in which an estimated 50,000 people were killed.
Lussick described some of the most hideous atrocities: the amputations of limbs which became a hallmark of the conflict, the gang rape victim whose eyes were torn out so she could not identify the perpetrators, the mother forced to carry a bag of human heads - including those of her children.
"She was forced to laugh while carrying the bag dripping with blood," he said. "She saw the heads of her children."
Taylor is due to serve his sentence at a high security prison in Britain. The six years he spent detained during the trial will count against his term.
Courtenay Griffiths, the lawyer who led Taylor's defence, said the sentence would only encourage embattled leaders to fight to the end rather than give in and face possible trial.
In Monrovia, the Taylor family called the trial a mockery of justice.
"They did this because America and Britain want to use our resources," family spokesman Sando Johnson said, referring to recent discoveries of oil offshore.
Taylor, 64, was the first head of state convicted by an international court since the trials of Nazis after World War II and the sentence set a precedent for the emerging system of international justice.
In an 11-year war that ended in 2002, Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front rebels murdered, raped and mutilated their way across Liberia's West African neighbor, helped by Taylor as he profited from a trade in so-called blood diamonds, the court said.
"He was found responsible for aiding and abetting some of the most heinous and brutal crimes in recorded history," said the Special Court for Sierra Leone's presiding judge Richard Lussick, emphasizing that the world was "entering a new era of accountability."
Although shorter than the 80 years prosecutors had sought, the sentence set a precedent for an international justice system aimed at deterring future war crimes. The court rejected defence appeals for leniency.
Dressed in a blue suit and yellow tie, Taylor sat impassively through the roughly 45-minute sentencing.
Hands clasped in front of his mouth and brow furrowed, Taylor shifted uneasily when the camera broadcasting proceedings settled on him.
For Edward Conteh, a Sierra Leonean whose left arm was hacked off by the rebels, the sentence was welcome.
"Taylor is now 64 years old, I know that he cannot do 50 years in prison, so I'm satisfied," Conteh said in the muggy and dilapidated capital, Freetown, scene of mass amputations during some of the heaviest fighting of the war.
Sierra Leone's average life expectancy dipped to 37 years during the war, in which an estimated 50,000 people were killed.
Lussick described some of the most hideous atrocities: the amputations of limbs which became a hallmark of the conflict, the gang rape victim whose eyes were torn out so she could not identify the perpetrators, the mother forced to carry a bag of human heads - including those of her children.
"She was forced to laugh while carrying the bag dripping with blood," he said. "She saw the heads of her children."
Taylor is due to serve his sentence at a high security prison in Britain. The six years he spent detained during the trial will count against his term.
Courtenay Griffiths, the lawyer who led Taylor's defence, said the sentence would only encourage embattled leaders to fight to the end rather than give in and face possible trial.
In Monrovia, the Taylor family called the trial a mockery of justice.
"They did this because America and Britain want to use our resources," family spokesman Sando Johnson said, referring to recent discoveries of oil offshore.
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