Final act in seven-year Taylor trial
VICTIMS of the bloody regime of Liberian warlord Charles Taylor spoke of their relief after his 50year jail term for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone was upheld by an international court yesterday.
The final verdict by the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone draws a line under the seven-year trial of the 65-yearold former Liberian president, sentenced in May last year for “some of the most heinous crimes in human history”.
“The message for sitting heads of state not only in Africa but beyond is that when you are in power you must exercise it judiciously, have respect for the rule of law and human rights and uphold the dignity of others,” said Sierra Leone government spokesman Abdulai Bayraytay.
About 100 people, including human rights activists and survivors of the Sierra Leone civil war, watched a live broadcast of the ruling in the capital, Freetown. The former warlord is likely to spend the rest of his life behind bars, possibly in a British jail.
He sparked a 13-year civil war in his own country when he led a rebellion in 1989 to oust President Samuel Doe, which deteriorated into one of Africa’s bloodiest conflicts. His National Patriotic Front of Liberia earned a reputation for extreme violence, conscripting child soldiers and terrorising citizens of certain ethnic groups.
After taking Monrovia, Taylor was elected president in 1997, but violence re-erupted in 1999 when another rebellion started and he lost control of much of the country, fleeing to Nigeria in 2003.
The conflicts killed 270,000 people, with many civilians displaced and several thousand becoming victims of atrocities, according to the United Nations.
As Liberia’s president from 1997 to 2003, Taylor supported Revolutionary United Front rebels in Sierra Leone by supplying them with guns and ammunition as they waged a campaign of terror during a civil war that claimed 120,000 lives from 1991-2002. He was arrested and transferred to The Hague in 2006, where he was convicted last year of aiding and abetting the rebels.